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tv   U.S. Senate  CSPAN  November 19, 2012 12:00pm-5:00pm EST

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deliberation in china. and i would rather be deliberated as the acting to make things potentially even worse. >> can i turn it to jeff? .. they answer to the question is yes, this is going to be a
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bigger and more difficult issue and it deserves more than 10 seconds, but particularly the attacks on u.s. corporations and intellectual property is the core problem. on some national dialogue i think it's a very interesting interesting subject and a great question. i think there's a lot that could be done in the investment area and relating to that in the ipr area. it's been more successful at the subnational level than the national level. governors and china want to invest more than their national governments want to encourage it. and, perhaps you can use leverage to improve icr performance at the regional level in china which is where the real problem lies oic real possibilities here. >> please join me in thanking this terrific panel. [applause] >> could i just note it as was mentioned before we have a really exceptional book event
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opportunity nine days from that day in the afternoon on wednesday, november 28. we will be putting out an announcement. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]
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[inaudible conversations] >> we have more from the brookings institution coming up today on the c-span network. the focus will be on capital markets in the so-called fiscal cliff which includes tax increases, spending cuts. the ceo of the nasdaq exchange is among the speakers. >> the mindset of the world well
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into the mid-1990s was that wireline access was stuff either on polls or buried in the ground. it was the key to understanding competition in the telecommunications. the intriguing part of the wireless story is how very few people inside the industry, that is why the mckinsey report came out the way it did -- was that it wasn't just judge green and the fcc who did not understand the potential of wireless. it was the entire industry except for a few visionaries who were sort of her guarded as kooks. and so what turned out to be the case was that the hope that some people had that you could have a robustly competitive, fixed line access industry you know where a half a dozen companies are offering telephone service over why are either cables or copper
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wire pairs like a telephone company, that vision was mistaken. >> 30 years later, was it a good idea to break up at&t? stanford's roger noll and m.i.t.'s jerry houseman discussed the pros and cons tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> how does one adequately expends his feelings about a speciassl friend? when that friend is also a world icon, a national hero of unimaginable proportion and a legend whose name will live inai histora.y long after all here today have been forgotten.mstro. >> they look down kindly on us when she chose neal to be
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at an event in washington, campaign director jed griffin explains some of their behind-the-scenes work. he was part of postelection analysis of lgbt issues. the 90 minute event was moderated by "washington post" recorder, peter wallsten. >> i have one roll tonight. my job is to welcome you. thank you for coming tonight. several months ago my good friend said to me would you mind posting this postelection panel and i said sure.
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i was very proud of having been the first national sponsor and we had our first real washington event in this very room five years ago, this time of year so absolutely. back then i thought we would have 35, and maybe 50 people, are most devout acolytes and maybe a couple of thought leaders thrown in, people who we want to get our mission out to. little did matt and i know that's it would have taken an about-face on what seemed to be a relentless march to keep denying us one aspect of our fundamental civil rights so here we are tonight with a capacity crowd and we thank you all for coming out. we have lots of things to talk about in here a.m. to introduce my dear friend chief executive director and to thank him for his contributions to what i hope is a new area -- era for the lgbt community.
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clearly the largess that created the williams institute but without red's vision and passion and talent he could never have executed it. [inaudible] [laughter] my dear friend was on the founding counsel and we have been attending these founding counsel meetings for years for brechtol take out his organizational chart and tell us how do i build a think-tank to rival those think-tanks of our foes in their opponents? how do i do it in a way that has real data and sound legal argument very effectively? he is so passionate about it and passionate about real data and real legal principles and we found as judge walker told us, chad might refer to that position, that if we have real data we will always conquer our foes. trying to throw at the top send bias at esso rat is passionate
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about that and that has allowed the institute to be so successful. he has this other talent for tracking leading scholars from oliver the country in an incredibly successful ways over the years -- [inaudible] and we arrive at where we are today so i thank you very much for the contribution he has made to us and i will i will turn it over to turn it over to him. >> thanks so much, tom. [applause] i want to start out by thinking tom and mark. they were here with us at the very beginning and as you said in this room and have stuck with us along the way. i also want to thank matt and -- for putting together this great panel and organize everything, doing all the work that brings us all here in this great room for this conversation.
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for the last several elections we have hosted these postelection events and it's always a little scary because we invite people and before we know the results. we are never quite sure where the conversation may lead that everyone is very courageous. in 2008 we had a well attended event that was very bittersweet in 2010. no one came. [laughter] and so it's nice to have it this year. i am just going to introduce the moderator. our moderator with us this year, peter wallsten who is the white house correspondent for "the washington post" and has a very pressing and career and reporting and i'm sure you all have fled his column from "the wall street journal" back where i live. in the "l.a. times." i want to mention 2006 he co-authored a book called one-party nation, the republican plan predominance.
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so we are very glad that plan isn't working so well. but peter is with us tonight to moderate the panel. [applause] >> thanks very much and thank you for doing this and i realize that i was not always easy to find over the last few weeks in the planning so i apologize for that but i think this will be an exciting event. i think everybody knows the panelists here but maybe we can do down the line and he can introduce yourselves and very quickly and then let's get started. >> i am chad griffin chairman of the human rights campaign. i am nan hunter i am nan hunter the legal scholarship director. >> i am gary gates the williams distinguished scholar and it tomography or and -- >> patrick guerriero. >> i thought we could start off talking about the election
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results which is on everyone's mind and obviously a historic night, a historic election for many reasons that anybody in this room are the nose. the election of tammy baldwin and marriage in four states and their re-election of a president who was vocally supportive in a historic way on marriage. interested first in getting, may be going down the panel quickly and each of you saying kind of how you felt that night or the next day. looking at it from 50,000 feet what did it all mean for the movement and for this community? >> absolutely and once again i want to thank williams for having me here. thank you so much. you have been at the forefront of this movement for longtime so thank you so much for having us here. usually when you are talking about an election and you say afterwards, a new direction, a turning point, it's usually spend. the truth is after this election, those are the only words you can use to describe
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what happened on tuesday as it relates to this movement. it really was a clean sweep across the country. i was cautiously optimistic if we were going to win some of these and often talked about it. we won one of the four marriage states but that would have been history making. we really would have taken a talking point where that are positioned day in and day out said, i will walk into a meeting and talk about how it's morally the right side of the issue and politically it's the right side and i'll talk about 16 polls that have us at over 50% in terms of the support in this country for marriage equality and the opposition walks in and says that's all well and good but they have lost every single time. the movement really was focused in came together and winning for the first time one of these but instead we won all four of them. you also mentioned tammy which was also historic. electing president obama, if you remember, if you go back to win, leading up to and when he
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announced his support for marriage equality, one you had many people just asking the question. is this going to be good? is this going to be bad? than you had our opponents saying the doom and gloom scenario suggesting to other politicians that they follow the president's lead and they will follow it right into retirement. one of my favorites that became a pet project of mine and many of you probably got my fundraising call before this little race in iowa, justice wiggins was on the ballot for -- in iowa. our opposition, the three judges on the iowa supreme court ever up in, the national organization for marriage spent $1 million to keep them and did so by 10 or 15 points. justice wiggins was the fourth judge on the ballot this november was made their priority as well. they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and they campaigned across the strait and had us trips across the state. we went in with some lawyers that were there in the state and a partner in the campaign and we
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save justice wiggins. we sent a message to the judiciary that just because you're on the right set of an issue you're not going to be recalled which is what our opposition is constantly trying to do it to scare politicians and the judiciary. it was a clean sweep across the country and i am very proud of all the work that our movement as a whole did. it really was a coming together and working together to achieve these massive victories. >> i would agree with basically what chadha said. what i would add to it is that i have this blog and what i blogged about in terms of the marriage results was sort of my headline was, this is what a tipping point looks like. in all four of the states the percentage that would have banned it was 52 to 53% which is
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exactly what the other side god with the prop 84 years ago. so it felt to me like in addition to all the polls we read, i mean, the nationwide su6% to 51%, it feels to me that these four states in part because they really did come from around the country for the most part or at least many parts of the country, sort of set this level of electoral support that is achievable by our side at 50% and i think that is really you know, an important and sort of magnificent kind of victory. i think the other piece of that is that on this issue, and i think this issue will come to be seen as representative more broadly of american politics, we are seeing a distinct separation
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between the regions that are more tolerant and more supportive, more progressive than the regions that are less so. the pew trust came out with a poll, you know sort of tracking region by region what the polls are in terms of this specific issue, support for same-sex marriage. so you know in the same way that we are accustomed to the red in the blue and all that sort of stuff and this is not to say that there aren't a lot of purple states where there is plenty of support. i think gay marriage is going to come to be seen increasingly not just as the gay marriage issue or this sort of you know like one off social issue or cultural issue, but an issue that is really telling us something, telling the country something about the direction the country is moving in and about the
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political decisions. >> i i am the data geek on the panel so i have to say i am using the nate silver blog. i went into those elections and i have continuously and my friends can attest to this, i have never believed this presidential election was going to be that close. i never believed that obama quite frankly that obama was going to lose. that peace was not actually a surprise to me and i was very confident going into it on that but the data side, to what chad was talking about on this very narrative is that polling has to show up not just majority in states, polling always have to show up at 56 or 57 to even think we had a shot at voting. and so i went into this very nervous about those votes and so
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obviously i was pleasantly surprised but i have to admit i have a personal stake in this. i got married in canada in 2004, across the border and i wasn't married. i lived in d.c. for a while, moved to california. i was married for a while in california and then i moved to washington and i wasn't married again. and now, i'm about to get married again. [laughter] thank you. >> hopefully to the same guy. [laughter] don't forget that. >> you don't gets gifts every time either. that's the problem. so i did have this very, i certainly had a personal thing in that so i was very pleasantly surprised on that side and i do think that also, i want to look at this, but it feels to me like this time the disconnect between
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the prior polling in the actual voting wasn't as big as it has in the pass which past which suggests to the extent that people were saying kind of different things to survey takers than they were, if that ever was true, it feels like in this race are polling rejected that which was the margin and we won by the margin close to the polling. i think if that is true that is very good news for us as we go forward with this kind of thing. i think there was a tendency for us to have to feel that we had to really get very high numbers. and so that was good news. >> i was less confident than gary was about the presidential race. my staff certainly said one thing but in boston at the romney headquarters my god was sensing a lot of confidence coming out of that building. unlike mr. romney and did have a concession speech prepared for this event as we thought through
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what the conversation would be like depending on the scenario but i had a few questions on election night. the first was remembering exactly what it felt like in 2004, where we had a dozen constitutional amendments passed all across the country. you had karl rove celebrated as the architect hewitt just built a new kind of republican electoral majority that would have legs in traction for a decade or two. you had a president who was reelected, not because of that within the toolkit was the use of the wedge issue, gay, gays and lgbt couples across the country. the dark and sort of fetal position and what i sensed on election night this year is how proud i am about our resilience. we picked ourselves up and we decided to fight and decided to start talking to republicans. we decided to demand more from our great democratic front.
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a lot of movements could have stayed down and then the dems for the next decade like some people predicted so there was a sense of pride in our resilience and our strength and character. the second reflection i have is that on election night in 2008, i spent it at the campaign headquarters for the prop 8 campaign. and watched young boys and girls club ride about an election result as they were watching the president give an inspiring and motivational victory. contrast that's what the disconnect from the nations embrace of the new and exciting visionary president with young people seeing themselves on the ballot in having their own neighbors reject them. i remember the mix of emotions that night for a lot of us in that room and certainly for the generation of young people. kind of the joy associated with election night and thinking about those young people who saw
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that they were embraced while the country across-the-board did not put up with these wage issues -- wedge issues and lgbt. while we had big wins in four blue states on the ballot and we elected a president, huge challenges face us. people still get fired for being lgbt. we still have state health care exchanges being signed in many states that at this point don't have all the things we need to make sure our families are protected by the federal government. they're such great challenges so let's enjoy this moment and celebrated but realize lots of work ahead in our opponents are doing what we did in 2004 trying to figure out what they did wrong. they will correct them selves and we have to be ready for a big fight. >> you guys have set the table for the conversation so let's drill down on a few of the things you've talked you talked about.
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gary, continuing in your role at "the daily beast" can you talk about the exit polls and what to take away from the lgbt vote and influence it may or may not have? >> one of the great things about this election is in the past basically the only thing we have known about the lgbt vote was the exit polls which usually told us what percentage that they were lgbt and how they voted. this year, gallup added in lgbt question to their daily tracking survey in june and collected data on voter preferences and continue to. so for me, one of the fun things that has happened for the lgbt movement and i actually don't think this is fun, this is serious, that this question is now a permanent question on the gallup data tracking survey so every night in america 1000 people are asked if they are
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lesbian, gay or transgender. most had never been asked that question before. about 3.5% said yes and the exit polling said that 5% of the electorate said yes and so what that allows us to do though is, so we had data, have data from june that was collected from june to september and for the first time we do not just look at the national vote that we start to look at regional and state level votes. what i did was a little analysis to see not just how the lgbt vote affected the national election and certainly from the national posture vote, it turns out that the lgbt support for obama was about the size of his victory over romney, and so you can credibly make the argument that for the popular vote, the lgbt vote, data is different but
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of course that is not how you win the presidency in the united states. the issue is what it did in the state elections and what i found really interesting, the same scenario for the popular vote in the national vote happens for ohio and florida so the lgbt support for obama is bigger in ohio and florida band is winning margins. so you can credibly argue that vote mattered a lot and if you think about an election where obama loses ohio and florida you start to think about a very different election. then i looked at also, what if romney and obama had more or less the -- of the lgbt vote was 7-6 obama and 7-2 romney and quite frankly it has been about that. it has been roughly 3-1. that is the highest it's been but quite frankly it's been high all through.
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but what if they split it or romney just got a little bit more? if romney had 151% of the lgbt vote he would have won ohio, florida and virginia. he would have been within four electoral votes of the presidency. so in ohio and florida, albeit to do was win a little over one third of the lgbt vote to win this big. so while i don't think that suggests that suddenly in the way that we are not talking about like immigration and things that republicans have to rethink their strategy, i don't think it's quite that level of impact, but a little bit of movement on any lgbt vote in key states, there would have been a very different picture for the national election. and so while i'm not willing to say that they lgbt vote won the
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election for obama, what i strongly think is it made a very important difference in the tenor of the election and in the majority of the electoral college and it definitely barely modest movement in that vote in key states. >> are any of you familiar with what kind of targeting the obama campaign did to the lgbt voters in the state? >> i don't know. i think we have all heard that their research showed the boat which is the same thing we have seen in other polling. huge votes in lgbt and straight. marriage equality is a top motivator. perhaps you could add to that but i think it's something that they saw. there was certainly no price to be paid for his position on marriage equality and there's a significant case to be made that there was increased excitement among these voters. because of that position in the contrast to that position with his opana.
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>> if you look at lgbt voters in the gallup data, they are disproportionately female, younger and nonwhite. those are all obama consistencies so i said what if given those characteristics they voted like the general public did, given that their race and aging characteristics and if that happens the lgbt vote should be about 56-44 for obama and romney, which suggest there is something about the lgbt thing that gives obama a 21-point swing. and i'm not saying that is all lgbt, but i think the data suggest that matters. >> look, 5%, six lgbt which is what they ask, was over
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6 million voters. over 6 million voters. that is a significant portion and becomes increasingly difficult for any party to ignore those 6 million votes. ..
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>> just completely counter to what their genuine think he was. george will predicted prior to the election that the fact that minnesota had this ballot measure on marriage would bring it so makes social conservatives that it would tip to romney. >> quite the opposite. >> quite the opposite. so it's entirely new calculati calculation, at least in significant chunks of the country. >> gary, did you happen to look at the exit polls come in terms of non-lgbt voters whether tammy baldwin's -- >> i haven't looked at, so the exit polling for lgbt stuff at
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state level doesn't help me much because you only get national pixel i want to look at the gallup data. at this point of what looked at the gallup data and kind of four, the ones where could have mattered which was ohio, florida, virginia and colorado. >> the one thing i would add, our firm had the privilege of helping service general consultant to tammy baldwin, run by emily's list with hrc as a partner. i know my business colleague has talked about it. lgbt issues both in wisconsin and other states are less significant, look at lgbt votes, 6 million, it's about the message the president sent by being bold and what the said independent voters, women voters, other progressive voters. and i think we need, heart of our job as we think through the challenges moving forward is how does a conversation about our issues, make sure we don't get
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silent. there's huge issues facing the country from the fiscal cliff to what that's going to mean for senior citizens, the people who really care about immigration policy to real challenges and communities of color, to violence industries. i think we need it to go away when we take the map that shows why we're so important, i attached that to some great challenges and make sure we're not seen as a movement only thinking about ourselves over the next 18 months. there's such joy that i'm afraid some of our friends and progressive partners who have huge challenges can see is celebrating a little bit too much. i think it will be one of the challenges for our movement in the days ahead. >> powder, following up, i've written a lot about president obama and harry deals with being african-american having been an african-american candidate. how to tammy baldwin deal with being a lesbian candidate? >> it's amazing to watch and who would have thought, we kept
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thinking it was going to be an issue in the campaign. to his credit i must say wow their many of us in this room who have disagreements with where tommy thompson ended up on lgbt it in this election, the fact it was used in any serious way and that risk of first big high u.s. senate race as both a credit to tammy as an amazing person and public servant, and and the right to run on a record. but also to the other side that plato is tough politics very wasn't always pretty but this was not anything that i think we look at the remarkable victories, and kudos to the other organizations where we saw an exciting new list of congressional members. we are at a new day now we can run candidates for u.s. senate, where the battle is over the stronger for the middle class, not about the personalized. is was the first time really cemented itself speak is that because it wouldn't have worked, do you think? >> i think they deserve some
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level of decency because oftentimes it didn't do in the public domain. use in very quiet ways. we didn't see hardly any evidence of that in this cycle. steel will come back in certain places but in that race in particular its accreditation some like tammy who has done her work, worked her tail off for years, was dignified when she was winning, it means we can elect u.s. senators and eventually a president. that is not the primary issue in the campaign. >> can you talk about the strategy, you guys have all discussed there's been a long intrigue in these marriage referenda. how did you turn that around? >> look, if you look, patrick and i were in the same hotel in sever siskel on election night, only four years ago, right, where there were two bald ribs. -- two ballrooms. you look at all that's happened in our movement. one, these campaigns and all the
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organizations in the movement have gotten very sophisticated. they came at us with a soda sugarcoated hate campaign that used to come out of florida keys to come out of anita bryant. it was very direct and it was very overt. now they just sugarcoated. all the as they came at us in those days were attempting to divert attention from what was on the ballot. and put a focus on schools. there was an infamous ad of a very, a young woman running income elementary school student sank money come at school today i learned that prince can marry a prince and princess can marry a princess. that was somewhat of is a price on a prop eight campaign. perhaps that can be wasn't well-prepared in those early days to respond to. we learned our lesson. rio vista. all four of his campaigns with a brilliant ground troops and campaign managers were ready. so the moment they went up with that, our side was up with the response to the. so i think we bonded to their
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single greatest argument that the use day in and day out and if it most of the millions of dollars behind we were ready for it and we respond. i also think the electorate in those four years have simply moved significant towards our issues. and they don't buy the. they don't buy that. on some of the polling, particularly in maine that when hearing that argued voters just don't buy as much anymore. i would add to that, utah coalitions unlike with everything in our movement. these were just coalition standing up at a press conference. these are partnerships with organizations like the naacp in particular in maryland, or duplicate of the system partnerships with religious institutions, catholics for marriage equality were significant. opposite has tried to dismiss these as lefty liberal states. look across the board. our phones are the ones who put three of those on the ballot. wielded the main on about. they forced it in minnesota maryland and washington. recently they thought they could win them or they would've spent the the time and energy to put
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them on about. because of the coalitions, and with them come out with the religious are you what you saw were fair-minded religious leaders and faith leaders in the accounting what they were sent to that something that we have seen as aggressively in the past. they also are losing support. you were saying, i was on a panel today, this is much more exciting with brian brown who runs the national organization for marriage, and he is desperately spinning, and he talks about the left liberal states but he also talks about how they were outspent this thing. well, they have seen their support shrink. a have seen can be are not going to go away and they learn the lessons. i think they could come back in a very force away, but it seemed their support shrink the they've seen their grassroots support shrink and they've seen their donor base shrink. the mormon church is a play that you did not see in these four campaigns but they were the dominant player in prop eight. also saw a lot of individual
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donors on the outside. not do this thing. where's on the protocol decide, you saw fair-minded people across the board standing up in both campaigning for these initiatives on our side, and also he can keep and writing big checks, straight allies. jeff was the single largest individual personal contribution to jeff and his wife contributed to put 5 million in the state of washington. you saw that across the board with lgbt people standing up, but also arm in arm with allies like we've never seen. >> the blue state argument i understand there's a lot of spin but it is true, it happened in lieu states. so how do you speak it depends how you define. maine has two republican senators and a republican governor, right? you know, i wouldn't call these lefty liberal state. california also called left liberal. they wandered prop eight. so what is a noticeable and sizable difference. there were many who thought
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maryland would be a challenge because we didn't have the same amount of time. it's a very diverse state. our opposition continued, he look at their statements that the campaign, they thought they had maryland lock. washington state and maryland and credible strong catholic state. they thought they had their because it was the catholics typical we found, catholics support marriage equality. and to all those advantages that they thought they had, they no longer have. >> are you now empowered to then try to move into some more conservative states? >> look, i think i movement has to continue to be smart strategic but right now where the other side on the defensive for the first time. we've been waning in state legislatures across the country. the playing field that they still had a bandage on were ballot measure. putting at the rights of minority to a public vote of the people in an arena where a truth and facts rarely matter,
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political campaign, and they were winning. so for the first time on this one playing field with a heavy vantage, we are now on the offensive and there on the defensive. so when medicine there like that, our responsibility as a movement by to look at opportunity, not slow down, double down and hitting tonex victories where their possible. i'm optimistic about opportunities across the board from east coast to the west and a number of states in between would have some real opportunities at the state legislative level. at the end of the day this is going to be one intercourse just as it has been in our past. but we have to fight and continue the momentum on all of these fronts and get victories working. speak where are the next states? >> it's anywhere from looking at rhode island and delaware all the way to hawaii. and a number of places in between. by the by, they are not just possibilities on the marriage front. is also great opportunities as
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it relates to perhaps statewide nondiscrimination measures and some statewide bullying initiatives, and all of those are important but just because a state i couldn't marriage up for a vote doesn't mean some of these other issues are not important to our movement is coming together and looking for those opportunities and we run aggressive and strategic. >> i wonder whether they're second guessing forcing it into three states because in the past, as patrick talked about, in 2041 of the 13 states, they just like ran the table. it turned out this time, it felt like to me that the resources, they struggle, the other side struggled with getting resources across all four of those states in ways that had not happened in the past. certainly in a money since, it was if not, even battle in favor of lgbt writes in most of the states i believe. so i wonder whether at this point they're debating whether that was very good strategy to
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try to go after all of those on that one time. those races have gotten way closer spent there on the defensive in terms of company, to be realistic there on the defensive. they've got, you know, like almost 40 states that have laws against marriage, and we're on the offense in terms of knocking off some of those. they did run the table in 2004, and so they have god constitutional amendments in states where their natural strength is, and those are going to be the toughest states to dislodge. what happened this time was that it seemed to me that our side was able to win in states that come in, maybe not the bluest in the country but they seem sort of in the middle somehow politically, right. and there was a high degree of regional variation. and i think that was part of the
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message. i think if the election had just been massachusetts and connecticut and new hampshire, and those three states had been welcome it would've been a much less powerful message. having said that, there still are a lot of stakes, as chad points out, there's a lot of states where there's no in discrimination law. and that's an incredibly important, you know, issued to press forward on. >> any other thoughts on future opportunities? >> i'm most intrigued by states and people don't expect us to move forward. one example being colorado where just republican leader block the civil unions bill in a bipartisan support. he is no longer the leader. and they'll be a vote on civil unions in colorado over the course of the next legislative session. in other places it's less sexy to talk about, but in i know what we had the threat of democrats losing people of the state senate.
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that didn't happen, as was a great victory on the judge's level. that would've been, we would've been literally ground zero moment today in iowa trying to defend a path towards a constitutional amendment if we had not held onto the seats in the states and. in new hampshire, you had, thankfully, a woman, democratic governor got elected. had that not happened and changed in the legislature, we would've been fighting on the ground in new hampshire today. i think right underneath the surface of for emotional powerful very big wins, there were these other really important wins. that tee up the delawares and the colorados, sal wise, minnesota's come where we not only on this one that fight but we split the legislation and that imagery with a government who support marriage. that are at least a half-dozen states who, if there strategic and smart and well timed, don't overreach will figure out the best time to make sure we're moving towards full recorded. right at the same time we're
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dealing with a supreme court that could be taken up one or two cases that will really be helped by winning content hard work of winning in a few more states. >> funny you mentioned the supreme court. let's talk about that. maybe, as you walk us through what might be coming up this term and what the stakes are and what the issues are? >> sure. there's three cases or clusters of cases that are pending before the court, waiting to see if the supreme court is going to grant review and hear arguments and decide then and this can. the cluster of case, consists of the dome a challenge. i think that is, that one of those cases at least is the one that the court is most likely to grant review in because all these courts have found a federal statute to be unconstitutional to the supreme court has got to resolve the.
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that's what it does. if it doesn't do that it doesn't do anything as supreme corporate so i think there's a question about which case it would be. the united states, which, of course, switched its position during the obama administration from defending delma to arguing it is unconstitutional has recommended to the court that its grants in the winter case. there's a lot of petition confront. there's only two cases where there's a court of appeals opinion. the winter case in the second circuit and one from the first circuit. i think the winter case is the more likely one, in part because the justice department has recommended that. so i really think that case is going to become that case is going to be a. i would be extremely surprised if the supreme court does not grant review in that case. and we cannot get a decision on the constitutionality of doma.
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the other two cases, the famous case which chad those a little bit about, is the prop eight case in california. that's from ninth circuit appeals decision, which by a two to one vote struck down prop eight. the supreme court denied search. the impact of that will be to affirm the ninth circuit opinion and prop eight will be unconstitutional. i think it's a big question what the court is going to do. there aren't and speak to the court that look, you don't have to redo this case, you know? it's about california. just let it be. let the ninth circuit decision stay in place. you don't have to, you have to take the case and roll the dice and try and reach a decision for all 50 states. i have no idea what the court is
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going to do in that case. i think -- there's also the possibility that at the end of november when the court is considering this they would grant review in one case, i think a doma case, and just all the other two cases until the end of the term. i think certainly a strong possibility. the third case is a case from arizona in which it again from the ninth circuit a good decision from the ninth circuit ruling that arizona's law, taking away part of the benefit from same-sex partners was unconstitutional. so again, if the court denies cert, and where there is a split in the circus. there's a lot of reasons to say well you can just let, let that sleeping dog lie, then that
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lower court opinion would take effect. and that would be for gay rights advocates but don't be very good, that would be a very good outcome. but the court has now come the court actually until yesterday i think has scheduled a decision on whether to take the cases at its conference next tuesday, the 20th, and it bumped it back to november 30, a friday. so somebody is either still trying to make up his or her mind, or trying to persuade someone else to make up his or her mind. because the cases are all fully briefed. so we're all kind of, you, pins and needles. >> could you guys game this out a bit. this is a fairly conservative supreme court.
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>> all the cases are different, and yet there is an overarching theme. the overarching theme is an equal protection analysis in each of the cases. and so the court has to decide any of these cases, unless it goes off stand, let's say in the prop eight case for something. but the big question there, the big sort of blockbuster potential this term is for the court to articulate a new equal protection standard. to perhaps either give heightened scrutiny to sexual orientation classifications, or different to admit what they have been doing and saying look, when a just applying for low-level highly deferential rational basis standard. we're really looking at this classification with some stringency because it in fact is being used in a way that it is
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century with animus and bias, and it has no relationship to the legitimacy of the programs we're talking about. so that's kind of the really big question, will the reach that point in whatever case they take? >> which one of these conservatives the thing, two or maybe more, would go that direction? >> well, in terms of trying to gain it out, that's -- [inaudible] >> i wouldn't answer that question. >> don't hold me to it from any of this step we are filming it spent yeah, right. that's what i'm saying this. i think the strongest likelihood for a good decision in terms of striking down a discriminatory classification is in the doma case, or whichever doma case they take. for all kinds of reasons, it's
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an extraordinary thing that the federal government, while it accepts the state government definitions of marriage for every other kind of marriage, including common-law marriages or other marriages, there are some differences between the states. this is the one category that gets singled out for deferential treatment. so that just sets up i think for justice kennedy, unicom has sort of rome or philosophy, and so that's my most hopeful expectation. >> chad, sorry to interrupt, but could you from a strategic standpoint, i mean, is there a risk in bringing these issues to this court? >> i think anytime one files a lawsuit there's always risk. you can either win or you can lose. i absolutely believe that we're on the right side of this issue.
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we have the actual constitution in our favor. as we saw in the prop eight trial, which was 12 days of brilliance that chief judge walker oversaw. when our opposition is forced into a court of law, where truth and fact are the only things that matter, unlike a political campaign, and where there's this truth serum, so-called expert witness is under oath, truth, or should i say the quality, tends to win today. and you seniors across the board by the way. if you look at all of these victories, not just about a victory but all the doma victories that nan was talking about, many of these are by judges do not proceed to the lefty liberal judges but many of them were appointed by republican. some of them were appointed by democrats, but i fundamentally believe that at the end of the day it's so clear what the country is headed on this issue, as we have on some other civil rights issues.
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in 1967 when the supreme court will, that was a unanimous decision. if you look at legacies, one can either go a route of plessy v. ferguson or brandy portrait i did say all these things a as a nonlawyer on this that although having spent much of the last few years of my life with really smart lawyer, i try to learn from, and nan asserted expert on this panel of where the justices are likely to do. but i'm an optimistic we would've found the prop eight case, an and a sumitomo case wod have been found either by the brilliant lawyers and legal organizations that filed those. so i'm optimistic and think it's a mistake to write off any justice. >> let's go back to the capitol hill, just thinking we talked earlier about tammy baldwin. patrick, what you think are present in the senate will mean, in the presence of others, there were other lawmakers, lgbt lawmakers this cycle. is that going to change the dynamic on the hill at all?
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>> sure. i'm a, then there's a lot to put on her shoulders, a change of institution, the u.s. senate. if anyone is capable of it, and he is. we've learned in state legislatures around the country that even in some of the toughest states with the toughest debates whenever lgbt americans in the chamber, at the desk, the language, the tone, the debate often changed almost automatically when they were the. you you're sunday talk about your colleague who you're trying to get to vote your tax bill or your local bond bill. we found, many of those in the room have seen this, a moment tammy baldwin walks to the senate, any senator who wants to get to the floor to debate lgbt issue is going to think twice about what they say about us, when they know tammy will stand up at her desk, almost as important though i think we now have a bold group of take a democratic senators, some allies
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on the republican side who themselves look at this issue completely differently. when you connect lgbt leaders with a bold allies that we have now, i just think the tone and debate in washington -- i do think though considering redistricting and how tough it will be for democrats to take over the house of representatives for some time, not impossible but real tough. we have to be really careful about not over learning our success, and understand that to get to a vote or to get to real congressional action on something super big is going to require work among republicans. where movement that hasn't always done that well in the midst of such big wins, i can see his kind of entering into play for our lexicon is cocky and arrogant. we start labeling people who want 100% with us as an enemy but i don't think that's the case. we need to do some soul-searching while we try to
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get some big things done. how do we start talking about the real serious sustainable center-right work we need to do so that we are prepared for sustainable electoral majority but also it's one thing, look at it would be great to win big huge court case. i hope it happens it happens faster even if we did win, bringing the public with us. we've learned from other social movements that have one big court cases it's not just those big decisions that matter. you have to do the hard work in tough places where people are not with us so that we are not fighting this battle a quarter century from now. so in washington i think it's going to be tough to pass any big deal. i do think they'll under chad's leadership and certainly his vision for how we talk about these issues among some nontraditional allies, there's a chance to have a conversation with republicans about things on discrimination. >> who are the target republicans? who is out there to be talk to? >> you know, this sounds crazy.
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i wouldn't preclude anyone. at this stage. i think they are looking what this issue means. icing data that shocks me -- i've seen data that shocks me but i seem her history is nothing and the public is moving. if we are talking about issues that are not just marriage, we are talking of nondiscrimination, there's not a single office i wouldn't be willing to walk into. .. the key witness throughout
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their stay. only a few months ago david blankenhorn and this case is still being litigated, came out and reversed his position on marriage. and i think he was brave to do so. he did a lot of soul-searching i think after that trial and quite frankly went through an evolution of his own. like most americans by the way. sometimes it gets laughed at when he gets used. evolution is quite frank they would most lgbt people went through when they came out of the closet and what our parents went through when they accepted it and with the other side go through so i completely agree with patrick. the lesson is don't write off any anyone and be willing to have that conversation. as we all know, all you have to do is have someone close to you whether it's a family, colleague at work, neighbor next door, someone in your church to be open to you about being lgbt in that and that person comes with us. >> sorry, i just wanted to point out we have also elected a
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bisexual person and demographically the lgbt split is half lg and half b but federally it hasn't been all lg and i think it's actually a good thing for the movement to have an openly bisexual legislator on the federal level and hopefully we will get a t in there soon enough. >> and who is this? >> i know you were going to ask that. that is another -- republicans are having that openly -- >> but don't you need to have a plan? i'm not hearing any names of republican lawmakers. who are you going to go to first? what kind of strategy are you going to have for them? >> i will speak briefly about that but until we get into this next legislation we may have small opportunities in the
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lame-duck. i think the real opportunities would come after that and we do have to be realistic that the current house leader is still the same and is still kind willing to move or has been in the past unwilling. my hope is that the things that came out of this election will in fact open up the door to have those conversations and there are good people who have been helping to open those doors. if you look at what ken mehlman has done over these last few years and opening doors and abdicating adventure getting money not only to these campaigns with having a conversation with those that he is close to. one of the biggest donors to the republican party, finance chair from that romney is one of the single greatest philanthropist on the issue of equality in marriage inequality specifically. wiki go on and on but i think the more that we have leaders like that, to force the conversation, when those elected officials come to their doors wanting fund-raisers, that
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question gets asked a maathai luck happens and that helps us further open those doors. we have to see what those opportunities are. we have some that has been leaders for a long time. susan collins has been tremendous. without her support we wouldn't have had the victories we have had that my hope is that we will have a lot more that follow her lead. >> what about the democrats? harry reid is scheduled at the end of next week or whenever they are back. are you going to put pressure on him to deliver on that? >> look, i think it's a crime that we still don't have workplace protection in this country. the vast majority of american supporters, the vast majority of republican supporters, the vast majority of conservative republicans support and patrick can talk a lot more about this. he's been in the middle of this research and it's outrageous that we have had some elected officials who have not allowed this to go forward. corporations are ahead of congress and many companies have moved forward and have inclusive practices and work place
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protections that are fully inclusive. a number of states of move forward but still in more than half the states in this country you can be fired simply for being lgbt. it's outrageous. it's almost like legislating the golden rule in congress. those who are unwilling to move forward, it's just such a simple calm -- concept and the most american of values. >> what about getting harry reid to schedule a vote? >> well be first at a hearing. it's my hope that we can move to a markup and it's my hope that we will get leadership in the house that will be willing to move this. i think we have to be smart and strategic about our votes. let's not go forward with someone that we know is not going to move and spend time in resources on that the day in and day out we need to push this forward. again i hope that this election was a signal to those who were unwilling to allow this to move forward particularly in the house of representatives. >> i will just add there are some issues on the front pages
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of the newspaper that are as important lgbt families are going around princeton quickly in my initial comments but if you are an lgbt family trying to be recognized and have children and don't have health care and you are watching 50 states navigate through the implementation of affordable care act, what's more important than harry reid doing and boat is their way for you access serious sustainable health care for your family? that is a bread-and-butter issue that really impacts families. on a more global level, watching secretary clinton's leadership and making lgbt -- when what that means to our brothers and sisters in countries who fear not only persecution but death. as we think of our so-called gay agenda, you know court cases of highly important super important winning marriage states really bit but i think we also have to step back a little bit and go you know, not everybody is as
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fortunate as many of us in this room. we have an obligation to look at that both on the local level, the state level and even globally in the movement has an obligation to speak to that. >> i would add one thing about employment discrimination because that's such an incredibly important issue and so fundamental. and that is there is the avenue that doesn't take us all the way but the avenue of the federal executive order. president obama could and should sign. that would cover federal contracts and if a business wants to give part of its income from the federal government, it should be willing to agree to not discriminate. in fact, the majority of federal contractors already have those policies, but the extension to all federal contractors would extend antidiscrimination to
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people who don't have it now. and you know, there are mechanisms through the agencies as well. in fact, reports have repeatedly found that gender identity coverage especially is covered under title vii. we have seen in the past year issues of firming that with regard to gender identity and there are other arguments that are there and available in other ways. we need congressional action because, unless you have a definitive supreme court decision or an act of congress, you can't be sure and employment discrimination is such a fundamental thing that people need to be protected from. i think we have to be sure. but there are other avenues as well that we can pursue. >> to add to what patrick was saying about some of these other
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issues, same-sex couples and children in this country are disproportionately and economically disadvantaged and less likely to have health insurance and more likely to be racial and ethnic minorities and the race in places where they have no protections whatsoever. they are much more common in the south in the midwest to new england and the west coast. those issues are in fact -- and i think one of the great things about in the last decade, getting these better data in being able to show that diversity with an lgbt community, that in fact these issues aren't simply someone else's problem. >> patrick on the affordable care act, is that something that the white house can help with? did they have the ability to put drescher on states on that issue? >> secretary sebelius has been a tremendous friend to our movement in the community when she laid out the regulations for
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the affordable care act, really laid out some very broad and full guidelines that basically said do not discriminate the lgbt families. there is a lot of work to be done there and there are a lot of things to be done by great partners like a center for american progress and other groups that are doing smart work in that space but again part of that is the republican administrations were really smart at times at embedding some anti-players into agencies where they were cast with regulations for doing things that impacted us for generation. i think the obama administration has received very little credit for getting responsible people who were open-minded, who were willing to have conversations with us and realize a couple of adjectives in one rule of regulation can change people's lives. forever, and for a generation of lgbt people.
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across the administration, think they're going to be demands not only for big bills but also for continuing agency work with one of the shout outs to you. not very, although you think it is. [laughter] at the end of the second obama administration, or families are are -- across all of the agencies that will change our ability to access resources. it will end discrimination in so many different ways than we can do for any piece of legislation and i think we have to make sure we don't lose sight of those. >> another big thing in terms of some of the regulatory changes have been the impact of the gender community which is very difficult to get attention and a legislative and quite frankly in a judicial framework. and you know, the ability to get a passport becomes very basic thing. to your point, relatively minor
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tweets of regulation and just good inside people who knew how to do that, it has made a pretty big difference in people's lives. >> now, getting to the next topic which is let's talk about the president. and what you all expect in the second term. you brought up the executive order. i would like to hear chad and all of you talk about, why didn't he sign that already and what is the white house telling you about when that's going to happen? he could do or it right now if he wanted to. >> there is no question that is something that this president could and should do. we have all urged it and we have all considered it. the president deserves tremendous credit for all the progress we have in the first term and now it's time to turn to the second term now that he has been reelected and that is at the top of their ruins lives. what he can do without an act of congress and it's important to note that again it's not the end
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solution but it's a really important step towards that goal. the president supports the civil rights movement and we will continue to urge this president. if i had that ipers emmett would be a front page story tomorrow but i think as a whole, all of us in the community they care about that will continue the push. there are number of other things in the first term. the cabinet has increasingly looked like america including an increasing and the start number of lgbt americans across-the-board from federal judges to agile -- other scheduled appointments but it's my hope that we can have our first openly lgbt member. there are plenty of folks who're qualified for that and as well i think it's time we have a g20 openly lgbt.
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and so their advancements the president can still make on behalf of the quality that don't require a congressional movement. there are a number of other things we need congress to move while we have a president to sign those and many of those are what we have all talked about. >> who are some of the folks of might be cabinet officials? >> i will stop short of going through a list of folks because i think we can all come as one presidential candidate once said, binders full. [laughter] i would expect that everyone in this room has a binder or two full of qualified candidates both here and around the country for any level of these appointments by the way. >> what signals are you getting from the administration that they will appoint a gay cabinet? >> i have absolutely no confirmation as to who is going to be appointed where or when openings will come about but i
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do believe there will be openings and i'm confident that there are qualified lgbt candidates. >> can i ask quickly on the executive order? can you describe what the white house implementation has been on that? >> no, i don't know. they made clear while i was living in california that they were not moving forward right away on that and i don't know why. but my hope is that they will. there was a long push encouraging the president and elected officials to openly come out in favor of marriage equality and the president said -- and i took him at his word. i am optimistic that he will ultimately issue that executive order because it's the right thing to do. the timing of which, i don't know. >> gary, you touched on this a few minutes ago but are there other changes that we can expect in the way that this census counts families or what else are
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you hearing? >> i think that the issue of data has oddly gotten quite a bit of attention. in the first administration and quite frankly some of the movement leadership groups really calling for better data collection. but, i think there is a chance -- i am not necessarily saying we are going to get a gender identity question on this census but i think we will get more routine federal surveys asking those questions. a big issue for me would be to get the national institutes of health. one of the ways at we see enormous headway in getting better research on racial and ethnic i nor descend on women was that when you apply for federal research, you have to explain. you had to explained why. every single time, no matter what. so one of the recommendations
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that the institutes of medicine panel that called for better data collection was to get nih to say if you submit a research proposal, and you're not going to study gender identity you have to explained why not. and i think that's actually an achievable goal in a relatively short timeframe. there are several big federal surveys that i think we are about we are about to get sexual orientation on the national health interview survey thanks to secretary secretary civilians and i think there are some, and that's the biggest health survey in the country. so i think there are -- the other piece i would say is i think the census bureau is certainly moving towards better ways to both count same-sex couples and their families but also begin to really try to measure marriage and domestic partnerships because right now there is no federal data at all. and particularly at doma, that
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might actually become an important statistic that we want to know and quite frankly that is when you get tension and some federal agencies. and in health care, we get elements of the health care law that has a specific impact. that helps the argument for better data. >> i just want to say one more thing which is the really big issues that don't have lgbt in the title matter significantly so immigration reform. it's about all of us, our families and partners and our friends partners. the debate about the fiscal cliff. if we don't figure out a sensible way to resolve that, the impact on so many of our families and to talk about the demographics, humongous. we don't want to get ahead of ourselves and say we don't have a serious fight that aren't just about us but i think a great challenge over the next couple of years and part of what the country is facing is how do we embed ourselves in a real way in a smart and strategic thoughtful
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way. how do we use that to build tighter relationships with their progressive friends who have had our backs for so long, not just asking something for snl in the context of solutions to the fiscal cliff and immigration do we use never laysha and shifts with republicans in that process to get to a place that they're with us. so a slightly weighted -- different way to look. >> i hate to bring his pentagon into this particular new cycle but "don't ask don't tell" its historic. "don't ask don't tell" was passed but we still have to remember that our men and women who fight and die for this country, they still don't have equal benefits. there's still a long ways to go in this country as it relates to equal benefits and issues of i.d. cards and base housing in partnership benefits and a whole host of things.
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its important progress that we still need to make as well as transgender service, something that is not even right now discussion but it's something that's important and needs to be addressed. you know i say that because all these things we talk about, we talk about the politics and the numbers in the victories and not so many losses. but at at the end of the day there are real-life people. it's not often that we pass a law that there are real-life people who are immediately impacted and feel that. but right now in this country, the vast majority of people live in places where they are treated as second-class citizens in a young person growing up in america today, if you look at the three places where people spend most of their time, home-school and church in many places they are rejected at all three, in some cases at their own kitchen table and sometimes bullied at school. these advancements that we make impact those lives and they tell
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this young people that they can grow up and hope and dream and have aspirations as their peers can. these laws and administrative actions and the successes, they really matter to real-life people and it's spelled in this country. i think it's important that we all come back to that because it's so easy to get lost in vote counts in results from elections, but we all -- we don't often have the privilege of working on issues that is the success or failure impacts in actual life. >> i think we might have time for audience questions. i'm not sure with the time that is left. if there is somebody that could actually help me. i won't be old is he if somebody's hand is raised but if somebody can help. we will call on people. >> i am a retired government employee and in addition to the pentagon, all of those other --
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are affected. i wish after 25 years of service including two years in afghanistan, that my partner could have identity. it's a basic, basic need. what can we expect from the administration now and from hrc? >> yeah, well first of all, you telling your story just like that is something we didn't talk about. it's how we are winning these battles. it's a shame that it took us so long to learn that lesson that harvey milk taught us, by telling our story. people listen and people increasingly come about and they support us and the story that you just up and told, tivo like you telling that story across this country in states and here in this town were oftentimes in this town especially, the real-life human impact is often forgotten. because politics dominates.
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the discussion of politics and the ins and outs in the process dominate. that is why i was referencing what i did but is sort of the perfect follow up. to real-life committed couples, it's outrageous that in this country and perhaps in other countries you can imagine that, but in this country, we would treat our citizens in such an unequal way that impacts their lives. and we will keep fighting day in and day out aggressively by the way. i have often talked about, time matters. time actually matters on these things. you know when we filed the case and there was a bit of a delay because in this roundabout way it went to the supreme court and it took them 12 months to answer a question. we launched along with other groups a -- and there were two very eloquent gentleman from palm springs who had been together for a most 50
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years. and he expressed that he could not wait because he wanted to get married. his partner had just been diagnosed with alzheimer's and he wanted to get married while they could both still remember the occasion. on the day that we finally had her hearing at the ninth circuit court of appeals, his partner had passed away. so they will never know that right. when we filed the case, christine sandy, the lead plaintiffs in that case, they were just entering high school. they're going to graduate in june. their moms still are not married, so we have to tell this human story. as often as possible because that is what america cares about. and we have to be smart and strategic about how we get these victories and how we get them as fast as we can. but always remembering why we fight. i can't be more eloquent than you just were. >> you are talked about the
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coalition before the work that was done in this election. how do you see our role as lgbt people in working on other issues and where do you see that play out? those benefits that don't always get that. >> you are absolutely right or good something that patrick was talking about there. it's very important and if you look at the fiscal cliff we are all talking about, sequestration and you look at, if we don't come to a sensible resolution here, all people including lgbt people, right, it's often silly when we have these discussions. lgbt people aren't part of the community that are impacted by health care or impacted by cuts in medical care, particularly care for hiv and aids patients. with a look at where we are headed -- so i think we have to increasingly work together in
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coalitions and in partnerships where we can come together. we don't have to agree on everything, but finding those commonalities and working together. it's incredible what we can achieve only do so so as a movement we have to challenge ourselves to do more of that. >> patrick i was wondering if you could just, following on that, talk about what you see as the ways this community can work with the immigrant right community on immigration? >> sure, it's an issue not going away and still needs some action but i think for the next 10 to 15 years it's one that will be part of the american political landscape. i think the good news is, and it's nice to hear something nice about you while you were here but it's kind of a new generation of lgbt leadership that is looking at the way we do business differently. and we are starting to reflect the diversity in our community. i think we call on our leaders to say if you really want to play a role in the immigration
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commerce a shame, this is how we do it. and i think we need to see that across the line. you know, you look at the impact on women and the controversy over the last few years about women's issues. you look at some of the outrageous language, the fact that we are talking about contraception and talking about rape is hard to imagine. that didn't go away because a couple of candidates lost in a few states. there is something there that is very real and a movement always hasn't done a good job of understanding the intersection of the word lesbian in the way we do our work and the issues we talk about. i think it's a challenge for folks like chad and other leaders in our movement to get a broad movement counsel on how to engage but the one thing i can tell you in short, there will be a never-ending number of opportunities in light of the way the country is about to face really big, big complex issues after this election. we are not there today in
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knowing exactly how to do it but there'll be opportunities. >> another pretty aggressive area of the coalition is state communities and the task force that have a big and aggressive operations that try to work within and with faith communities. i think that has been a fairly fruitful, pretty fruitful partnership. >> a few points that i agree on with chad. [inaudible] it would be a step that we haven't taken many years but when peter asked the question you stop short saying a full vote on the senate would be a good thing in terms of public education something that harry reid promised three years ago. they are sort of choosing not to and it allows our opponents to sort of quietly opposed as
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opposed to forcing them to out themselves. why not push for that as well and build on that by getting that vote, even if we get 57, 58 or 59 votes, less than a filibuster -- [inaudible] >> these things take work and it's very easy to say let's just move forward" on this or that. i am for doing it. we know we have a plan to win and we have the votes to win and if that is the day, then let's move forward. but i do think we have to be smart because we are asking for a lot. if you listen to all the things that we talked about, we want these things and we want them now so we have to look strategically at where can we get our next advancement and how quickly can we get it? i'm not looking to setup ourselves for a loss because i think we need to continue the momentum. though recently won before is because we were smart and strategic in the way that we
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played and we won all four. that goes for a number of these other accomplishments that we have talked about. but i am for an inclusive and fully inclusive workplace protection coming out of the congress as soon as we can get it. >> okay, so like a lot of people here i am sure, i -- the hrc on a regular basis but the arguments they give me to donate are the ones where there is a close race. as we feel the wind at our back how do you think this will start funding the real push for lgbt writes? >> well look, i think we have to have a reality check and be realistic in terms of where we actually are. before tuesday night we had six states and the district of columbia. today we have nine out of 50
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states and the district of columbia. so yes, moment to miss on our side that we have a long ways to go. i'm certain we will have the wins it are back along the way. the opposition is trying to roll back -- the right now in omaha nebraska we have incredible workplace protection in the law. you will continue to see some places having to continue to be on the offensive, i'm sorry, on the defensive. we have to remember our victories were in -- and without this incredible support from our members, from the small of dollar donors, it would be hard to achieve these victories. while i look forward to the day that we can glide into some of these, don't think any of us on this panel see any of these as an easy glide. they are all hard work and require significant resources and time and energy across-the-board.
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>> chad, your press release that after the election saga was a 20 million-dollar campaign. is that going to be a baseline now? >> i don't know. i've only been here five months. >> what the going to be in the future? >> i will tell you and that is contributing to the race. i was proud to have been on the national finance committee for the president as well as half a dozen hrc members and what we were able to contribute with our partners and then our candidate across the country. we endorse 233 candidates this cycle and we did well in the vast majority of them and we certainly had some losses in there. reticular awy some of our moderate republicans that didn't win. judy bigart the example. we also placed over $5.5 million just this cycle in the four states. i came in june and worked my darndest and directed many resources as i could within that delving and also outside the
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building. more people notice brad pitt's 100,000-dollar contribution and people had an open mind. when he did that, but i will continue as you have seen the first five months to be as aggressive as i can be. i really do think this is the turning point. it is our moment and we have to keep fighting like hell in order to keep winning these victories because the stakes are too high. the consequences of losses are significant. >> you touched on this earlier but one of these doma cases was decided and 41 states now have marriage equality laws. what do you say the opposition -- and it will be a divided country for years from now?
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>> while the supreme court strikes down section 3 of doma, it doesn't affect any state law. it affects whether the federal government must recognize a marriage that is recognized in the state. so, it means that couples who marry in massachusetts or new york or other states and recognized marriage, whether those marriages will be recognized by the federal government. it doesn't do anything -- it doesn't do anything to force the states that don't recognize same-sex marriages to take that step. it only means that the federal government policy has to be to recognize the marriage that any given state recognizes. so i don't think it will prompt actually a backlash because it is limited anyway in a way and it was framed --
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the cases were framed very clearly so they involve things like social security or federal employee benefits or federal income tax, or other issues that are specifically federal law. i do think however, that, and a lot of the examples that have come up whether it's federal employees are they affordable care act, or immigration or any number of other issues, that if the supreme court does strike down just that section of doma, it's going to have many ripple effects. i mean, it is framed in a way that his is limited federal policy but of course we know that federal policy circulates throughout many areas of law and many areas of our lives. so, you know, it's important to remember that the doma cases are
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targeted at a very specific aspect of discrimination. but, i also think that you know, if we win and one of those cases, that the ramifications are going to be actually quite broad. not that the states will be forced to change their laws about marriage, but in the sense that if individuals do want to choose to marry, the ramifications in the federal law will be quite extensive in a lot of different areas that affect the exchanges, the health insurance exchanges. it's going to affect immigration law significantly. it will have a lot of effect. >> one more thing to be optimistic and coming up with a nuanced thing we should all worry about is that the most powerful case for marriage is marriage itself. i think we have that on our side. we have found whether it's a court case in massachusetts or a state like vermont that went from civil unions to marriage or a state who legislated like new
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york that in all of those cases regardless of what the root of full equality was in those states, the moment your neighbor saw your marriage, and the locus in play did not shout -- the locus and plagues did not show up, you look at the demographics in polling that stayed. i am hopeful 10 more big wins on the state level. every victory comes not only with a little bit of backlash but a tremendous about of energy and embrace because they see their neighbors and it's okay. it's a very hopeful sign for us. >> i think jerry is the genius on this panel but i don't think there is any evidence in the numbers that backed that up either. if you look at the demographic data on this work for marriage equality and you look at the trajectory ahead, it's very difficult to make the case that we are going to see anything but the movement. the question is the pace of the
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movement. >> i think in the data, what is surprising is just how big the difference is. its dramatic. i have never completely agree that people's values when they are 25 are going to be the same when they're 50 but the margins are just so large. >> can you talk for a minute about the changes in the african-american community on the issue because that was one area obviously that the african-american churches in california mobilized in 2008 and didn't seem to come to fruition at the time. >> yeah the evidence suggests in maryland where he had a sizable effort and american community and the electorate, at best it was a 50/60 proposition and clearly in the past it had been not necessarily that close. but i think in general in minority communities, one thing
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to remember about racial and ethnic minority communities in this country as they are younger and they are more female than the white population. both of those things favor, particularly marriage of women and substantially more likely to support marriage equality than men and younger people more likely. everybody seems seemed surprised that latinos, can a fairly consistent polling of majority support for marriage equality. part of that is a purely demographic phenomenon. they are younger and they are more female and that i think is also starting to be true in the african-american community as well. every racial ethnic minority in this country followed that basic demographic. >> we have time for one more question. >> i was interested in --
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what has help respond to the attempt to divide in the state of maryland, african-american versus lgbt divide? that false conflict. >> i was on a panel yesterday with darlene from the national institute of catholics and she talked a lot about -- obviously there's a lot of engagement with african-american pastors, many of whom were not going to come out in support of this but the conversation happened and what everyone has been saying, it doesn't always mean that you get the support there but you begin to get this civil conversation about the issue. her argument is that is one of the things that happens in maryland. >> that's right but also if you look its 27% with the african-american turnout in maryland and there were
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significant movement. it was because ben jealous of the naacp stood up and was a partner with that campaign, a full partner. revkin delmon coates, one of the biggest african-american mega-church ministers in maryland was not just on our side but was campaigning day in and day out and talking to his own convert -- congregation and talking to folks on the issue. those are two examples but there are many others. >> the picture, if darlene is correct, her argument that on the literature was michelle obama. that her support was clearly used in a campaign. >> so i think a combination of those things has really moved forward. >> thanks very much to the panel. it's a great discussion. [applause] >> thank you.
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[applause] >> thanks everyone for coming. goodnight. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]
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>> the mindset of the world well into the mid-1990s was that wireline access with stuff either on polls poles are buried on the ground was the key to understanding competition in telecommunications. the intriguing part of the wireless story is how very few people inside the industry, that is why the mckinsey report came out the way it did -- though was that it wasn't just judge green and the fcc who did not understand the potential of wireless. it was the entire industry except for a few visionaries who were sort of regard it as kooks. and so, what turned out to be the case was that the hope that some people had that you could
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have a robustly competitive fixed line access industry where a half a dozen companies are all creating telephone service over a wire. the either wires are copper wire pairs like a the telephone company, that vision was mistaken. >> how does one adequately expends his feelings about a special friend? when that friend is also a world icon, a national hero of unimaginable proportions and a legend whose name will live in
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history long after all hereve today have been forgotten. >> faith looked down kindly on us when she chose neal to be the first adventurer to another world and to have theo opportunity to look back from space and at the beauty of our own. it could have been another, but it wasn't. and it wasn't for a reason. no one, no one but no one could have accepted the responsibility of his remarkable accomplishment more dignity and more grace than neal armstrong. he embodied all that is good and all that is great about america.
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>> last week president obama nominee to lead the war in afghanistan said the u.s. will maintain it presents in that country beyond 2014 during the so-called decade of transition. general joseph dunford is currently the second highest-ranking officer in the marine corps and he said he has not been involved in the latest round of war planning talks between the white house and the pentagon. chairman levin and other committee members expressed their support for john alan. he is being investigated for alleged misconduct related to the scandals that force the resignation of cia director david petraeus. this is about two and a half hours.
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>> good morning everybody. general joseph dunford jr. united states to be the next commander of the international security assistance force. this morning's hearing was originally scheduled to also include consideration of the nomination of general john allen to be commander of the u.s. european command and supreme allied commander. general allen of course currently holds the positions for which general dunford is nominated. however earlier this week the department of defense requested that general allen's nomination be put on hold, pending a department of defense inspector general reviewed. we have agreed and hope that the review can be completed from play. general dunford brings to this nomination he distinguished military career with over 35 years of military service.
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is currently the assistant commandant of the marine corps and is commanded combat forces in iraq. general, we thank you for your many years of service and for your willingness to once again answer the call to serve this nation. but may also extend our thanks to your family, whose support is so essential as is the tradition of this committee i would invite you to introduce your wife, ellen, and any family members or friends who may be here with you this morning when you make your opening remarks. today's hearing comes at an important time and follows a string of negative reports in the media over the last few months that have raised questions about various aspects of the campaign and the performance of the afghan security forces. we hope that this morning general dunford can provide the broader issues in afghanistan the progress of building the
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afghan security forces, what the prospects are for the next two years in terms of transition to afghan control, and what steps the united states coalition and afghan leaders are taking to address and mitigate the insider threats. the recent increase in insider attacks by afghan national security forces personnel or impersonators against u.s. and coalition forces threatens the essential trust between isaf forces and their afghan partners. at the same time, according to isaf data, the number of enemy initiated attacks over the last three months is down 5% compared to the same three-month period a year ago. if confirmed general dunford will assume command is the security transition in afghanistan enters a critical phase. getting afghan security forces in the lead for security
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continues to be the key to the success of the afghan mission. afghan security forces are moving into the security lead in designated areas around the country as coalition forces step back more and more into a supporting role. the areas under afghan security lead now cover approximately 75% of the afghan population. left and security forces will have a merry responsibility for security throughout afghanistan once the transition process is completed next summer. isaf forces will continue to provide support, including combat support if necessary until the end of 2014. afghan security forces have been general shown that they are willing to fight and the afghan people want to have their own forces rather than coalition
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forces keeping their communities secure. a key element of this transition, which general dunford will be overseeing, is the shift in the isaf mission from having coalition combat forces partnering and operating with similar units of the afghan forces to a security force assistance mission. now in that mission, midgrade officers and senior noncommissioned officers form security force assistance teams or as bats which are embedded in small units as advisers within afghan forces to help elder capabilities even as afghan forces continue their move into the lead for combat operations. at general dunford will be responsible if confirmed for implementing the president's decision on the drawdown of u.s. forces in afghanistan during the next two years to post 2014
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levels. an important milestone was achieved at the end of september with the drawdown of u.s. forces to the 68,000 level in the completion of the withdrawal of the 33,000 u.s. surge forces. secretary pineto said earlier this week that general allen and the white house or in the process of discussing options for the u.s. enduring presence in afghanistan after 2014, a process that secretary pineto hopes will be completed quote within the next few weeks" secretary pineto stressed that the u.s. is enduring presence in afghanistan would be based on the mission that u.s. fork sis would be carrying out like counterterrorism, advising and assisting forces and providing enabling capability. jen wrote we would like to hear from you this morning about the pace of the drawdown the u.s.
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forces from the current 68,000 troop level to the level of our enduring presence after 2014. do you expect the drawdown to occur at a steady pace? the president has said or do expect the drawdown remaining at 68,000 through next year's fighting season and then dropping rapidly sometime thereafter? finally, the united states and afghanistan have begun negotiations on a status of forces agreement or sofa, as required by the bilateral strategic partnership agreement the president obama and karzai signed in may. the sopel will provide the necessary protections for u.s. troops deployed to afghanistan after 2014 and we would be interested in your thoughts general on the importance of the sofa for signaling to the taliban and afghanistan
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neighbors that the u.s. afghanistan partnership will be an enduring contribution to reaching stability and we would also hope you would address what you see as the u.s. redlines in those sofa negotiations. so we look forward to your testimony this morning and i'd now call upon senator mccain. >> thank you mr. chairman and i would like to thank our distinguished witness for joining us this morning and for his many years of impressive service in uniform. let me start by saying a word about general john allen, our commander in afghanistan, who we had expected to testify today on his nomination to be commander of the u.s. european command and supreme allied commander. while the committee wades the conclusion of the defense department's inspector general investigation, i continue to believe that general allen is one of our best military leaders and i continue to have confidence in his ability to lead the war in afghanistan as
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well as to serve and to post for which he has now been nominated. general dunford i'm grateful for your willingness to accept this nomination to serve as commander of u.s. forces in the international security assistance force in afghanistan, but i also believe that if you are confirmed you will have a difficult road ahead of you. i think our mission in afghanistan is a very serious and is at a very serious and troubling crossroads and much of the recent reporting is deeply worrisome. unfortunately, over the past few months, our enemies have been rather successful in carrying out so-called insider attacks that killed have killed and wounded many american and afghan troops. as i'm sure you would agree general dunford, it's hard to overstate the damage these kinds of attacks due to the morale of our troops and to our broader mission of supporting the growth and professionalization of afghan forces.
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it's hard for our troops to work effectively with their afghan partners when they have a reason to mistrust some among them. while i support the decision to suspend many of these partnering efforts, it is harmful nonetheless. we are also seeing more and more reports of declining security in afghanistan, including in a province like -- which was once one of the safest places in the country. al qaeda is working harder than ever to reestablish safe havens in eastern afghanistan and there is some evidence that they are succeeding. in what was perhaps the most brazen and least reported attacks this year, a small unit of taliban operatives fought their way into camp bastion in helmand province in september and managed to destroy six carrier aircraft, total loss of nearly $200 million.
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talk about asymmetrical warfare. two marines were killed in that attack, including lieutenant colonel christopher rayville, a marine aviator, who lost his life after running toward the fight and bravely fighting heavily armed insurgents with only his pilots sidearm. not surprisingly this growing insecurity is heightening ethnic and other factional tensions in afghanistan, which could portend a renewal of civil conflict. earlier this week "the new york times" reported that ismail khan, powerful tajik warlord who was responsible for some of the worst violence of afghanistan civil war is calling on his supporters to rearm and prepare for resumption of conflict against the taliban. these comments were echoed by marshall mohammed fahim, another powerful former warlord and
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eight tajik who stated quote at the afghan security forces are not able to wage this war, and call upon the mujahideen. all of these problems in afghanistan are compounded by the two major strategic challenges we face, the continued corruption and ineffectiveness on the part of the afghan government and the safe haven for taliban leadership and other insurgent groups that exist in pakistan, which continues to go unaddressed or worse. none of these developments should be surprising. they cannot be traced back to the fundamental doubt about american resolve in this conflict, a doubt that he shared among our friends and enemies alike in afghanistan and the region. the presidents repeated emphasis on withdrawal, without laying out what would constitute a successful and sustainable transition, has only -- in
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afghanistan that the united states is committed to getting out regardless of conditions on the ground. this doubt has encouraged all actors in afghanistan and in the region to hedge their bets which increases the worst instincts of the afghan government and increases the chance of a return to civil conflict in our absence. our mission is now at a crossroads and we can go down one of two paths. the first is the one that i fear the president will embark on, implementing aggressive cuts to our forces in afghanistan before 2014 and then leaving a presence of supporting forces that is not equal to the tasks they need to perform. if a new security agreement is concluded at all. this path would constitute a rush to failure, place an unnecessary risk on our forces and i could not support it in any respect.
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..
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>> yours will be a key voice in shaping these decisions. i helpful that you will advocate the action that will increase our chances of success are and i also hope that you were speak truth to power and resist the kind of project that is resolve for afghanistan that would be a sure recipe for failure. always look forward to hearing how you intend to execute major responsibilities that will be entrusted to you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator mccain. general, we now turn to you. >> chairman levin, senator mccain, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. joining me today is my wife, ellen, i am very fortunate to have her love and support. she is a great mother to her three children, and now young adults and serves as a tireless
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advocate for military families. she is unquestionably the best player in the dunford family. i would like to begin by thanking this court for court for the soldiers, sailors, and marines for the past 10 years. we have been well-trained, well-equipped, and well supported. performance in our military families reflect that support. as we all know, on september 11, 2001, members of al qaeda are in almost 3000 innocent people. we also know that this was planned in advance in afghanistan with the support of the taliban. for more than one decade, americans in uniform and their civilian counterparts have responded with extraordinary courage, commitment, self-sacrifice to deny a safe haven to al qaeda in afghanistan and prevent the taliban from overthrowing the afghan government. throughout that time we have been shoulder to shoulder with
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our coalition and afghan importance. as result of our shared sacrifice and commitment, our goals are within reach. in the months ahead, in accordance with our national objectives and commitments, we will complete the transition to afghan security lead and wead ends of the transitions with the afghan people. i recognize that much work remains to be done and the challenge remains to be many. but with continued focus and commitment, our goals are achievable. i look forward to working closely with our partners to overcome the challenges and make sure that sacrifices matter. confirmed come i also look forward to look forward to leaving our young men and women in afghanistan and i will do everything i can to make sure that they return home to their families. with that, i think the committee again for allowing me to appear before you today. i'm prepared to answer questions. >> thank you very much, general.
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we have a standard set of questions, we ask our nominees these questions come, let me now ask them of you. you have adhered to laws regarding infantry? >> i have. >> you agree to give your personal views, even if those differ from the administration in power? >> i do, chairman. >> have you undertaken any actions which presume to presume the outcome process? >> i have not, chairman elect we you comply do compliance deadlines for requested communications including the record? >> i will do so, chairman. >> will you cooperate in providing response to congressional requests? >> i will do so, chairman. >> willis witnesses be protected from their testimony or briefings? >> they will, chairman.
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>> you agree to testify before this committee? >> i do, chairman. >> you agree to provide copies of electronic communications that is duly constituted with the committee or consult the committee regarding the basis for any good faith of providing the documents? >> i do, chairman. >> okay, let's start with a seven minute first-round. >> okay. >> one of the keys to success in afghanistan is building the size and capacity of the afghan security forces. the plan calls for those forces to reach 352,000. >> as they called for by october this of this year. although it has been reported
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recently that the schedule for the building of those forces slipped by a few months. you know where that is? >> chairman, i do. all the individuals to meet the 352,000 goal, not only individuals have been trained, and my expectation based on my recent visits, but the training will be completed in early 2013. >> now, senator graham and i, and i think others honest as are on this committee, we hope that it not be reduced to the 200 30,000 model, which has apparently been adopted for starting, in what i believe was from a 2015 -- that was adopted at the nato chicago summit. we really feel that this is a very good investment of dollars.
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it is a heck of a lot better than having a larger number of americans and troops there. even though it is obviously a greater cost to us and our allies for helping them to maintain the force at a larger level of 352,000, instead of after a few years reducing that number down to 200 30,000, nonetheless, we are very concerned about that model. we believe that it is based on assumptions and based on the affordability of afghan forces rather than our commanders best military judgment. would you assure us that in making any recommendations on the future size of the afghan security forces, that you will provide your best military judgment, independent of the affordability consideration? >> chairman, i will. and i am aware that the size and
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the timeline for a the drawdown of the afghan security forces was done by analysis on the center for analysis a couple of years ago. if i am confirmed, one of the first things i will do is revisit the assumptions associated with a plan. i will ensure that we maintain the capabilities and capacities the afghans have been able to meet their security requirements post-2410. >> what is your assessment of performance of the afghan security forces, particularly with providing security? >> chairman, came back from a recent visit encouraged by the capability of the after its security forces. we had 10 members to every afghan security forces that have been very little change and with very little clement.
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i was actually encouraged that we have corps level operations planned and executed by the afghans alone. from my perspective today, the afghans have the capability with the support we are providing to provide security. 76% of the afghan population is currently secured as a result of parts one, two, and three, of the afghan national security forces and i believe based on a trajectory of the development of the afghans since it started the effort through 2014, and the consumption post 2014, with our level of commitment, we can provide the national security forces, and they will be able to meet the security requirements in afghanistan. >> the president -- our president has indicated that he expects that the drawdown is going to occur at a steady pace. is that your understanding of
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what his statement was and what is your own belief as to that issue? >> chairman, what i need to do is make an assessment of the capabilities and capacities that he will maintain over the next two years. especially if they meet our objectives. first, we need to have the necessary security to meet milestone 2013 this coming summer. we will be transition to full security lead by the afghans. second, we need to ensure that we have set the proper conditions for successful elections in 2014, and finally we need to ensure that we have the proper forces to smoothly transition in december of 2014. as i make a recommendation, look at the strength of the enemy. i will look at the capabilities and capacities of the afghan national security forces, judge the capability of the coalition forces and make a recommendation on what our contribution to the between now and 2014 and beyond us are gone to that data
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transformation. >> the afghan people tend to have a very large confidence in the afghan national army with 93% according to the polls, saying that they have a fair amount for a great deal of confidence in the army. andy, confidence is even growing in the afghan national police, with 82% of the afghan people according to the polls expressing level of confidence in him. do you believe that those numbers and percentages and and polls are accurate in front when it finds that a significant majority of the afghan people have high confidence were a reasonable level of confidence in the afghan national army and the national police? >> chairman, do not have the sense for the methodology that was used to develop this is
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statistics. it is an area that i would look deeply into if confirmed. >> all right. earlier this week it was reported that afghans energy and minister,, a well-known warlord from iraq, mr. kahn, this seemed to indicate a lack of confidence in the afghan national security forces in suggesting that he would rebuild his militia forces. mr. kahn has raised tensions among fears that other warlords may be on, threatening to weaken support for the government and increasing the risk of civil war. i am wondering if you could give us your assessment of mr. kahn's statements and the challenge is that the militias would have and
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the transition to full security responsibility to the afghan national security forces. >> chairman, those militias would absolutely have an adverse effect on stability. i think what is necessary now, you alluded to a lack of confidence, senator mccain also alluded to that. what is necessary now is that we have a compelling amount of commitment from our country and our partner in nations and their capitals and the afghan government. the clear and compelling narrative needs to be consistent. that is something that we need to work on your next couple of months to address those issues, like when you refer to with the militias. >> thank you very much, general. senator mccain? >> mr. chairman, i would ask the chairman's endorsement for senator inhofe to make a comment about the responsibilities. i believe that he is going to post the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
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>> thank you. >> first of all, let me just ask two short questions. one i would like to get on record in agreeing with a comment that senator mccain made about general allen. secondly, in response to a written response, do you agree with the surge forces in afghanistan and further reduction should continue at a steady pace, your response was i agree that there will be further reductions through 2014. but the pace of the withdrawal over the next 25 months would depend on several factors. one of this is the new regimens. we had a hearing on may 10. he testified that have always considered you to be one of the
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top individuals, understanding and evaluating trading. you and i have talked about this before. the experiences that we have had in watching the trading that has taken place with the afghan national security forces, specifically in military training, which i have been to devote times. would you give us an evaluation of the level of training? because that is what will depend upon a lot of the rate of withdrawal, in my opinion, were it should come anyway. >> senator, i did have limited opportunity to see the trading that was ongoing in afghanistan. i am, as you are, encouraged by what nato is doing. from my perspective, the testament of our training is the performance of the afghans, and as i mentioned a minute ago, i really believe over the last 18
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months, but the performance has been significantly improved as a result of training being provided. >> i appreciate that. the second two things i would like to ask you for the record, one would be and has been a year now. 2011 when the international forces in afghanistan seized shipments of 4822-millimeter rockets from iran. i think they are still denying that those were iranian rockets that were sent. i would like to know, for the record, the current record of iranian activity in afghanistan and perhaps somebody else will be asking this during the course of this meeting. as the questions i asked on my office on the blue and green attacks, if you could respond for the record on some of our conversations concerning math, and you're concerned about that, can you do that for us? >> i will do that, sir thank
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you, mr. chairman. >> okay, the chairman had to leave for a moment and she asked me to go ahead with my question. general doctor, thank you to your extraordinary record of service and thank you for your willingness to take on this critical leadership position at this very important time. this hearing happens to take place on the same day that u.s. and afghan officials are meeting for the first time to begin negotiations or bilateral security agreement, under which we would agree to keep some kind of number of forces associated in afghanistan after 2014. we spoke about this when you are good enough to visit my office this week. i would like to give you an opportunity to speak about it here.
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it seems that the immediate positions about drawdown and support of the afghan national security forces are more important. they are very important. but i think there is value to jump in jumping head and then maybe coming back. because i do think what we began to do with this bilateral security agreement, whether we will have a presence in afghanistan after 2014 or what it will be and how it affects what happens, let me ask you. how important is that, in your view, for the u.s. to conclude an agreement with the afghan government to keep some military presence, troops, etc., in afghanistan after 2014? and also why? >> sir, thank you, i think first and foremost a bilateral security agreement that we have a clear message of commitment for a long-term strategic partnership. we signed tj partnership this
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may with bilateral security, providing technical details with associating the strategic court understands partnership agreement. what has been raised this morning is the lack of understanding of that commitment, in some cases, a lack of confidence that we are committed in the long-term. i believe that bilateral 30 agreement will have -- they it will create momentum on the strategic side. i think it will be a clear message, with a u.s. presence. i would also expect that our coalition partners, once the agreement is signed by the united states, will also look to effect a bilateral security agreement with the afghans as well. >> okay. what is your bilateral security?
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>> senator agreement was signed back in may. i believe we need of do on and the end of 2014 effect on our forces in of commitment. >> is that a question of the morale of our forces, or
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senator, i think it's a question of that we remain, confidence in the capitals of the coalition regional actors that we will remain. that is what agreement. a clear and compelling narrative. that transition of 2014. and we also intend to, in accordance with agreement in chicago and tokyo, see through the decade of transformation that needs that is would have i
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has at best based on one term commitment of the region be there beyond i had in mind, senator, first and, russia, china, all the calculus would be affected by a signing a bilateral security agreement. more importantly, signing an agreement reflecting well. >> i is and the
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others, i can't help it seems to me that they we have no continuing presence in iraq, nothing are warnings to what you
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were called for. which is to have a much smaller, me
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>> the leadership is that the afghan government is favorably disposed in a bilateral security agreement. clearly, the details both governments have come to both appear to be cautious and optimistic that we will be able to very. >> isn't keeping senator, i have
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i assessments my first question is do know what the command in that is interesting to me. a guy that's going to take over the command you had no
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impressions or ideas as to whether a troop drawdown issue between now and 2014? >> senator, have an understanding of framework in which that decision ought to be made. i certainly have identified the important burials that need to be made. i have not been involved in the detailed planning map so you are a blank slate? do you believe that any strategy in afghanistan can be successful while militants continue to enjoy safe haven and in pakistan? >> overtime, said human needs to be addressed. >> do you believe that the issue of corruption, we can succeed with a level of corruption that exists throughout afghanistan? >> i believe it is the most significant or tj challenge to meeting our objectives in afghanistan. >> you have any thoughts about how we would go with the issue of corruption? >> senator, i do.
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i have the framework that i have reviewed with the united states command and the embassy in kabul and the international security forces systems. >> is it succeeding? >> senator, there has been progress made in the last 18 months. especially since the tokyo meeting. >> you believe there has been any progress in the safe haven issue in pakistan? >> it is not apparent to me that there has been any progress in pakistan. >> if confirmed, will you provide the committee with recommendations that he would ultimately make through your chain of command with regard to the size and pace of the drawdown of u.s. forces from afghanistan? the max i would do so, senator. >> the reason i keep raising this issue for you and i feel so strongly about it, every time i have been there and have had
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commander conversations at all levels, they believe that we need to keep the 68,000 there until the 2014 day. if we start a withdrawal, we would not be able to accomplish a lot of those missions there. if we cannot accomplish the mission, i am not sure why we should stay. that is something that i think a lot of us have to wrestle with. we are going to start drawing down right away. from 68,000. trying to know that our military leaders leading is absolutely necessary. i think that we need to look at other options. this attack that destroyed six aircraft. does that concern you?
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is about the example of the brazen way that the taliban has? >> i think it does reflect what the taliban have. >> you are confident that the afghan forces will be able to stand on their own after 2014 without significant assistance from the united states? >> senator, i believe that the afghan national security forces will require assistance from the united states as well as coalition partners to be successful post-2014. >> you think we are winning the war in afghanistan? >> i think we are making progress. i believe our objectives are achievable. >> you have any conclusions that you drew from your recent trip on the security situation in afghanistan, particularly in southern and eastern afghanistan? >> ideal, senator. broadly speaking, one of the statistic i have heard is that 80% of violence happens where 20% of the population is.
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another statistic is that 76% of the population is currently secured by afghan national security forces. the vast preponderance of violence is taking place outside of populated areas. the taliban has been displaced from the population. i view that as a sign of success. >> do you believe al qaeda is growing stronger in afghanistan? >> senator, i do not believe that they are growing stronger, but there is evidence of their al qaeda presence. >> does this recent were secured warlord -- is that worry some? >> evidence. >> we have been going over the last 11 years. we hadn't seen the progress we had hoped would take place.
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the afghans and their neighbors, the united states spends most of its time announcing dates for withdrawals, rather than recipes for success. some of us have been observing us for a long time. we have made many visits and many briefings which are deeply concerning. so i hope that you will, in your assessment, and in your ability to take into consideration seriously our ability to complete the message. that is a stable afghanistan that is able to defend itself over time.
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frankly, i'm not sure that is the case today. i am not sure if we start drawing down immediately that we may be able to achieve that goal. we have sacrificed a lot, as you know far better than i do. we are going to want to have an assessment as to whether this mission can actually succeed or not. i thank you for your willingness to serve. >> i thank you, senator mccain. >> senator? >> yes, i would like to begin by expressing my confidence in general bumpers, in every sense of the word, his integrity and his respect.
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the greatest award in the marine corps for leadership is to give someone command. the general has commanded battalions and regiments and he was commanding general of the first expeditionary force. in addition to that, he has a masters in government from georgetown university and international relations and i have known him for a decade. he is the person that we need over there. in this very difficult and complex assignment. a sense of duty that i admire very much. a great understanding of the role of the military and the military process. and he has an unambiguous direct policy advice, which is what we are going to need. especially as we began to sort
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out what direction the country should be going in in afghanistan. general, i would like to take up, first of all, where senator lieberman left off in discussing this bilateral security agreement. as you know, the president was in afghanistan to sign what they called an enduring strategic partnership agreement. a comment that was made at the time that this was a binding agreement -- i have had a problem with the way that we have addressed these long-term agreements to beginning with the way that they were breached in iraq and in some ways, we are paying the price that the strategic framework agreement
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was reached. i've warned at the time that by allowing an executive agreement to determine the long-term national policy, while excluding congressional participation is very strange with our governmental systems should be working. the iraqi parliament voted on that remark. and we did not even have the opportunity to debate it, much less vote on. i was informed by my staff that there was a conference call with the senate staff to his deputy special agreement, it contained no binding commitments, and as a result, there is no need to bring this document to the hill.
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and it says that the afghan parliament will approve the agreement. you know, i think that whenever you have an agreement that is going to propel action here in the congress later on, that we should really have direct congressional involvement. it is a clear and long-term message between two countries. this is not something that is completely in your concern, but i would like to raise it for the concern of my colleagues here. this is something that the congress should be directly involved in. if it is not, you will see the same kind of problems we have had in iraq. you and i have discussed a number of times when i mentioned it to general petraeus. almost four years ago, when we
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were in this escalation in afghanistan, my great concern was that the metric for success was going to be largely determined by two factors that we really cannot control. the first is the validity of the national government. the second was the growth of the national military and police force that had never been achieved in afghanistan's history. i would like your thoughts on those two metrics as they affect your responsibilities. >> senator. i believe that the most strategic event that will occur between now and 2014 by the elections in 2014. without successful elections, i am concerned that the conditional contributions that
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were pledged in tokyo and chicago, for development and security forces will not be there. those are absolutely critical to our ability to sustain the effort and meet our objectives first 2014. the other reason those elections are so important is because the legitimacy of the selections in the eyes of the afghan people are going to have a lot to do with the willingness to support the afghan government, and therefore not support the taliban. i cannot could not agree with you more that the national government, the legitimacy of it, and more importantly, adequate elections in 2014, they are preconditions for our success. with regard to the afghan national security forces, i don't know what afghanistan will be able to sustain over time. i do believe that we can sustain a force of 352,000. through 2014. i think it's important that we look at sustaining the right level of force host 2014 and
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forward. at some point, when the coalition has resources that are no longer available, in the initial years of the transformation, at some point i think the afghan national security forces will have the right side to meet their security requirements within the resources. >> we tend to characterize the challenge simply as the taliban versus the present government. when i go back to the agreements where the structure of this government was agreed to, there was a lot of concern that the structure itself may not fit the history of this country in the longer term. but you may end up seeing a need for a different structure,
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something different away from a central government before you can have a stability. do you have any thoughts on that? >> i think one of the most important aspects is whatever we come up with has to be sustainable over time. that clearly will require a uniquely afghan solution to governance. as i look at the election of 2014, our primary role is to provide support to the afghan national security forces as they secure the elections. our primary role is a government is to support the afghans that they conduct elections that are legitimate to the afghans. i believe that the organizational concept of the afghan government overtime needs to take into account the culture. also the requirement sustainable in thank you, mr. chairman. senator ayotte.
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to thank you, mr. chairman. a few general dunford for your distinguished service. i appreciate your position and i give the best to your family as well. this would like to ask a straightforward question. which is understandably, many of my constituents, americans have grown more wary. what i'd like you to tell us is why does the outcome in afghanistan matter? why does it matter to americans? what are the consequences of us, if we were to make a decision right now to say that we will pull out right now? can you help us with that? and i just want to understand that. because we have no tremendous sacrifices they are among menu men and women in uniform. >> senator, thank you for that
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question. that is the most important question that i think the american people have and when we should be able to answer clearly. in the wake of 9/11, we ran afghanistan because they were sanctuary for al qaeda. that area is still ripe for sanctuary for al qaeda. we also want to establish a government in afghanistan to ensure that the taliban no longer harbor al qaeda enough for the region. those objectives remain. to deny the ability of the taliban to overthrow the government in afghanistan. now, the mission is to ensure that those days we have made over the last several years, particularly in the development of the afghan national security forces and elections of 2014, providing interim government, will ensure that the afghans can do what we have been doing over the past decade.
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i will be concerned that if we did not complete the mission, as i mentioned in my opening comments, i believe the objectives are attainable. we didn't complete the mission, we would have an area in afghanistan where al qaeda can continue to operate. and we would also have a destabilized country on the west side of pakistan. wherein we have significant national interest as well. i think it would be bad from the perspective of providing sanctuary from al qaeda, and it would have a destabilizing effect with effects that would be significant and inconsistent with our national interest. >> in looking at the conflict in iraq and thinking about our failure to be able to negotiate an agreement there. what lessons do you take from that experience in terms of us being able to negotiate a similar agreement in afghanistan , and in addition to that, what lessons do you also take from iraq?
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one of the concerns i have on a secondary issue is when we look at iraq, for example, we have a detainee who is a hezbollah leader, who is involved in the murder of five americans, the iraqis are going to let go. we have individuals that are in custody in afghanistan that may be third-party nationals. others that are too dangerous to release. i see that is also being an issue that needs to be negotiated going forward to make sure that we are not releasing terrorists back out into the open. >> with regard to the first question, i think one of the critical lesson for goods that we need to allow sufficient time for negotiations to be complete. i am encouraged that we have internalized that lesson learned as a result of the strategic partnership agreement that was signed in may that set a timeline for having a bilateral
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security agreement. again, that's may of 2013, which is six months ahead of a plan, it will transition to afghan control. i think in that regard, we have internalized a lesson learned. i am optimistic we have the sufficient time to get that agreement signed, which is so important. i think her negotiations started later than they have started in afghanistan. the other important that we have learned this was lessons go, some 400 different functions must eventually be sent out to organizations for the functions can be performed in enduring basis. i know right now that there is a detailed effort ongoing in the force as well as back here in washington in the capital. to identify that over the next 25 months, we have a logical response and deliberate way of patching those functions so that we have continuity as we go into
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the period of transition post- 2014. those are two lessons learned in the evidence that we have learned from direct experience in afghanistan. with regard to the individuals that you mentioned that need to be contained, i look at that is first and foremost a protection issue. they're clearly individuals that al qaeda and other members of the common network and more extremists who are absolutely irreconcilable, from my perspective those individuals need to remain locked up for the safety and security of our forces, as long as we are in afghanistan and the safety of the american people after we come out of afghanistan. >> the administration has taken a position that we are not going to add anyone else to guantánamo bay, is making sure that if those individuals remain in custody in a place like afghanistan, that we can assure that they wouldn't be released.
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i think that is one of the challenges that we face in iraq. would you agree? >> senator, that is absolutely one of the challenges that we face. the administration is working on a framework within that issue can be addressed. >> i think it has to be. we can't keep releasing people like that who have the blood of americans on their hands. clearly, the type of individuals that are going to go out and continue to engage in terrorist actions. i think this is incredibly important in terms of protecting the american people. also, our allies. one other question. the wartime contracting commission found that $60 billion of u.s. contracting funds have been wasted or misspent or went in the wrong hands. as a result of iraq and afghanistan. as a result of that, senator brown and i have introduced into the defense authorization bill in 2012, provisions to cut through the book and trimmed red tape you could cut a contract
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sooner if our taxpayer dollars were getting in the wrong hands. how are those provisions working and what more can we do? can you give us an update on if that is helpful to you? >> senator, thank you for your assistance that is part of the defense authorization act last year. the central command has used that authority over the last year. i understand at least $12 million that might have otherwise been in the hands of the taliban, did not go in the hands of the taliban because they had the authority to cancel the contracts because of the association of the contract contractors with the taliban. i also believe over the past year, and i did spend time with this on my visit, they have changed the organizational concept with isaf and the afghan government to provide our embassy in afghanistan to provide better oversight and ensure that the money that we provide coalition, that it
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achieves the desired in terms of afghanistan. i believe that's a good story. i believe it has allowed us to be more effective on the battlefield. both general allen and others have used it. >> thank you, general. if there is anything we can do to give you the authority that you need there, to make sure the money doesn't get into the wrong hands, we look forward to working with you on that. >> thank you, senator max. >> i want to echo my colleagues, and that we look forward to your appointment a new task. you have a long and undistinguished for in the military, and i thank you for being here. let me ask you one question. lastly, over 100 of our alaskan
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national guardsmen have provided security for the provincial reconstruction of the fourth brigade combat team stationed at a joint base. and have been in the process of being redeployed to kandahar. they've done a great job. i think all of our folks, in your opinion, could you please tell me -- i want to expand a little bit more, and we continue to have the success that i think that they did in the work they were doing, how do we ensure that as forces are drawn down and making sure that the afghan forces leading the charge? >> i just want to expand a little but not.
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>> senator, the growth of the trip for 4 cents a focus on quantity. again, 352,000 recruited in the process of being trained. i think the focus over the next 25 months has to be addressing the quality of the afghan national security forces. that certainly indicates improvement in literacy and leadership. there are a number of enablers that need to be included in order for the transport to sustain themselves host 2014. those include areas like aviation, medical support, fire support. artillery. i sat through a meeting last week as the secretary of defense was personally involved in this. he has a weekly meeting to include those that are in afghanistan to ensure that there are no bureaucratic obstacles for meeting those requirements over the next two years and give the afghans what they need.
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from my perspective, you know, we will continue to address the institutional requirements for the afghans to continue to train themselves, to promote their education and have the ability to operate post-2014. i think our presence is 2014 will be informed by the gaps that remain as a result of the efforts that we have in the next 25 months to may i expand on the literacy issue? this is one that has been brought up multiple times in this meeting. in order for them to have an understand better enforcement of the law, as well as its managing the forces, can you give me some thoughts on what you see as to how you can improve the literacy rate? in iraq the literacy rate was higher. then it moved in a transition to a different way.
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can you give me a sense of this? i've said this before and i appreciate what you said, one of the first and now create a higher quality that leads to the sustainable overhaul. and i am assuming, literacy has to be a critical piece of that. >> senator, it is a critical piece. i am aware that the mission has a literacy program that is integral to our training of the transport. it is at the lowest tactical level to ensure that all soldiers are exposed to that enhance the literacy. it is also focused on areas that those units have aviation and fire support where there is an aspect of their performance. so we prioritize and enhance literacy in those areas. i think this is a long-term effort and certainly, as we provide oversight, this would be
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an area of interest. >> in regards to the drawdown in transition, i am a supporter of it, i wanted done by 2014. i also want to say something -- i don't think you are coming in with a blank slate. you have a lot of depth and knowledge and i think that you don't earn those stars by just showing up one day. you've spent a lot of years understanding the military operation and what needs to be done in situations like this. that is why we have one of the best mobile units anywhere. so let me ask you, from the knowledge you have today, do you think that you have all the authority and ability to ensure that the transfers of power continue, as well as movement of equipment out of the country that needs to be done or disposal of equipment?
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all the pieces that mechanically you need to make sure that that transition occurs properly? you think that you have all the things that you need at this point? >> my initial assessment, senator, is that we have what we need. among the meetings i sat through, i sat through general allen staff briefing on deployment and they did not identify any areas where they needed additional authorities. if i'm confirmed, we'll come back. identify gaps in the authorities in order to facilitate -- i would note that one significant thing has happened. the terms of reference, we reopened the grounds of communication. as you know, that has been a problem of the last several months. i was very encouraged by the signing of the terms of reference and the pending after the concept of the ground lines of communication, which will a assist in the areas that you
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identify. >> i want to make sure what i understood -- the decade of transformation, it was the phrase he used. do you mean that its combat forces are out, are you talking about what has occurred and where we are today? >> thank you for the opportunity to clarify that. it was a framework established in tokyo by our coalition forces and interested nations that provide the framework for the decade of transformation that will begin with a transition its place in december, 2014. what i alluded to was the 2014 until 2024 decade of transformation that was solidified for the games that we have made in the past 10 years and address the sustainability of governance, security and development post 2014. >> very good. i want to leave you with one comment. i know this probably doesn't
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fall in the way the military operates. in that decade of transportation, has there been some hard numbers attached -- financial numbers of what the u.s. commitment would be? if you are unable to answer that, and i recognize that you may not be able to at this point -- can you, at some point, can you estimate what the transformation would look like from a u.s. commitment? >> i can do that and take up that for the record. part of it will be the development peace. that was believed the tokyo peace. not to be confusing, in tokyo, nations pledged to seek funds from the government. based on the directions to go back to their congress and chicago, resources necessary to sustain specifically the
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security forces are identified. why can come back to what is the amount of money that we initially projected would be necessary to sustain the afghan national security forces post-2014. in some sense of who is willing to contribute those resources post 2014. >> very good. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. one of our members, general, and kurds should always seek truth to power. and i have no doubt you will do just that. my friend and colleague, senator joe lieberman, he told me that when you visited him, they ask you what you supported for
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baseball teams. he is a confirmed, misguided yankees fans. you admitted freely that you were a red sox fan. .. >> national intelligence
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estimates reports from the international crisis group, and the special investigator, the special investigation for afghanistan reconstruction have cast doubts on the ability of the afghan national security forces to consolidate and hold the gains in security that have been made in afghanistan over the past decade at great cost in treasure to her country, and others. these reports also cast doubt on the likelihood of the afghan government providing good governance in dealing with endemic corruption, such that it would enable the ansf to do its job in fighting the insurgency. given the escalation of insider attacks, the sanctuaries that
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still exist in pakistan, and the level of corruption in the afghan government, why do you believe that the objectives are indeed attainable? it seems to me that the intelligence report, the lack of progress, the surge in insider attacks paint a very bleak picture. >> senator, actually thank you for asking that question and gave me an opportunity to put what i believe to be those reports in perspective. here's what my confidence in space done in terms of reaching our objective specifically with regard to the afghan national security forces. as you know, five tranches of transitions were identified, five geographical areas were identified to be transitioned to afghan security control. we have initiated the transition in three of those five. in the three, first tranches we
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transitioned over to the afghan national security forces, violence has decreased. i think it is very important recognize that the violence that's taking place today is largely outside of the populated areas because the afghan national security forces have secured the populated areas but the other reason why i'm optimistic is again when i look at the afghan national security forces and where they were in 2008 when i first observed them and where they are today in 2012, it's a dramatic improvement. as i look forward over the next 24, 25 months, if we maintain the trajectory of had over the past several years into the next 25 months, i believe the afghan national security forces will be capable of providing security. i think it's important to look at that in relationship to key milestones. this summer we will go to milestone 2013. and at that point all five geographical areas i mentioned will be in transition. so the afghans will be
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incompletely in the lead at that point. given what i project to be our coalition in u.s. support in the summer of 2013, i am confident in the ability of the afghan national security forces to secure those five geographical areas. they will still need in some cases our combat operations to take place. they will need is to provide enabling support, and we will still be doing the advice and assistance mission as we transition enlargement advice as his mission in 2013. the next major event is the elections of 2014. and begin to look at the afghan capability combined with what i believe to be resources that will provide, and look at where the taliban is at this particular time and where they'll be in 2014, i project the afghans will be able to provide security at the time as well. i think in addition to look at the level of violence, where it's occurring outside the populated areas it's also important to note the taliban has had significant leadership losses over the last two years.
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the average age of a taliban leader that is probably 10 years younger than it was when the war started 10 years ago. they found significant attrition to our special forces at a conventional significantly hurt taliban issue. we see indications of taliban suffered financial difficulties and being unable to sustain the effort. they clearly did not achieve their objectives in the campaign during 2012. so senator, i don't for a minute understate the challenges associate with this endeavor. i recognize what has to happen between now and 2014 to continue to solidify the gains we have made with afghan national security forces and make the sustainable. i recognize when you to provide some support to the post 2014. the important thing is look at the relative capabilities of the insurgents versus the relative capability of the afghan national security forces with that support we are going to provide. to that extent i believe will meet our objectives in the afghans will be able to sustain that level of security we
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achieve in 2014. >> general, you mentioned that the overall level of violence in afghanistan has declined tom and i wonder, mr. chairman, if we could ask for some statistics on that. i have read and alternative analysis that suggests that the surge has not been successful in eastern afghanistan. and that the level of violence in that part of the country is actually come has actually increased. now, i understand when you have a surge you're going to have an increase in violence just because there's more combat, or fighting. but at this stage i think would be helpful for us to have a measure of the effectiveness of the surge in reducing violence,
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particularly to the civilian population. and i would hope that the chairman would ask for that information. and, finally, let me -- >> let me respond to the question, because i have asked for and i look at it this morning. it's really interesting, and i think it very much supports general dunford, but nonetheless i ask to be updated. it's a month behind and we can now get the october and will be able to get the november results, we can compare apples and apples this year to last you but it's a very important request your making, and i hope that by the end of next week we would have those statistics updated and i will make them available to ever. >> thank you. that would be very helpful. just quickly. i know my i know my time has expired. i just have to express my deep
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concern about the escalation and green on blue attacks. i know that you said that each death have strategic implications. and they know that you recognize that these attacks also are absolutely devastating to the families of american service members, since they are trying to train and help these afghan forces. and then to be killed by them, it's just devastating. and i think that these attacks also are jeopardizing the willingness of our partners to continue their own missions in afghanistan. so i guess for the record, i would ask, since my time has expired, what do you think this escalation threatens the ability for us to continue training and equipping the afghan forces, and eventually turning over the
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authority to them. >> i.t. could give a brief and to to that. it's such an important anti. i think our colleagues would understand that. >> chairman, i'd be glad you. thank you, senator. first and foremost the insider threat is a force protection issue. as such if i'm confirmed as commander i can assure you i will be personally and decisively engaged on the issue of insider threat. i have an opportunity to take a look at what i said this done under general allen's leadership to address the insider threat. i have been impressed by the comprehensive approach that has been taken. both at home station in terms of enhanced training, and training that takes place once we're inside of afghanistan. there's also been a significant increase in the number of counterintelligence resources in provided in afghanistan, both inside the coalition as well as inside of afghanistan. inside the afghan national security forces. perhaps what's most encouraging to me, and it perhaps is too
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early to see if it's a result of her success, but we've had a reduction in insider threats the last couple of months as we implement these new measures. but what's most revealing to me is that the afghans clearly, the afghan leadership takes this issue seriously. i had an opportunity to sit through a general allen calls a campaign synchronizations conference during my recent visit. and ministry of interior, the minister of defense and all the corps commanders and the subordinate leaderships with it. the afghans recognize this for the threat it is, and you ask what my perception of threat is. in addition to being a force protection issue, include is an issue that could undermine the trust which is the foundation of our relationship with the afghans. and could also affect the will of the coalition, strategic level to stay there. so i couldn't agree with you more. it is a critical issue. it is an issue that needs to be addressed but i don't think it's ever solved. i don't think we should ever be complacent. i think we need to stand in front of the enemy. we know we have an adaptive
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thinking enemy, and as we make adjustments, as general allen has, the enemy will also adjust and we need stepped in front. but i can assure you if i'm confirmed that issue will be at the top of my inbox and i will be personally engaged in assuring we address it properly. >> thank you, general. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator udall. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, general. let me just start by acknowledging your service. you have served with great distinction and selflessness for many years. i know everybody on the committee wants to acknowledge your service but i also know your family has been an important part of your service, and they have sacrificed as much as you have. i want to extend my gratitude to your family as well. and here you said having carried a load much more than your fair share these last years, and you are preparing to do even more. so we look forward to seeing you in the theater as we discussed yesterday when he came by to visit me. and i just want to let you know
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you have my deepest thanks for your service. let me, if i might, move to an inside you might be able to provide is based on your service in iraq. of afghan and iraq cultures are different, and the nature of those two wars were different in some respects, but i know there's some lessons that you learned in iraq. and i would like to hear what you learned and how that might guide you as isaf over the next two years. >> center, thank you for the question but i think the first thing we all recognize is that the defeat mechanism for these insurgency will be capable, security forces in the genus. and i think all the lessons that we learned and iraq the successes that we had in iraq were a result of our effort to stand up, capable iraqi security forces. we service our that's what happened in the anbar province. that's what happened in baghdad.
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that's what happened in the other is of violence in iraq as we are able to grow capabilities with iraqi security forces and providing them with the requisite level of support, they were able to take the fight to the enemy. from my perspective that capability that the iraqis had is what was the defeat mechanism for the insurgency in iraq. i think similarly what we take to afghanistan is the recognition that the critical part of our effort in afghanistan over the next two years is to continue our efforts to develop the capabilities of the afghan national security forces. those indigenous forces will be the forces that allow us to be successful in afghanistan. those forces are the ones that will allow our success to be enduring. so i think at the strategic level that's the thing that is similar from iraq to afghanistan. and one we ought not to lose focus on. >> let me pick up on that line of testimony, and turn to the alp. when i was last in afghanistan
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with senator jack reed last october, that was the real focus in general, allen and another of his subordinate commanders and there were some positive signs, alp forces or locals, they are therefore more trusted by villages and community elders. do you support the continuation of the alp program? and are there lessons learned there that we can incorporate into other ansf organizations? >> thank you for the question. i absolutely support the continuation of afghan local police and i think what our special operations forces have done in established village support operations in afghan local police has been one of the success stories over the last 18 months. but perhaps it's better for me to share with you the perspective of the afghans and the perspective of taliban on the alp to make that point. i did suggest to mention a minute ago the synchronization conference of afghan leadership, and as you might recall when the
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alp was first introduced there was some resistance amongst the afghans to into making that program. the only issue the afghan leadership had about the afghan local police during the recent security synchronization conference was how much faster can we need the full task you are authorized level of afghan local police. there are about 16,000 fielded right now and there's a full authorization level of 30,000 or so from the perspective of the afghans they very much recognize that this local solution to security, completely linked to local leadership and under the supervision of district police is an absolutely successful program. but what's most interesting is that talibans perspective of afghan local police. and the taliban view, the afghan local police is one of the most significant issues that they have to address in order to be successful. they believed that as more afghan local police is filled, more of areas under afghan local police provided with the wind
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break, they view that as very concerned development. so i think both general allen and isaf view alp as a successful program. i certainly, if confirmed, would intend on continuing that program, but again as importantly, when you look at it through the lens of the afghans and the taliban i think you get some sense for how important that program has been as successful it has been, and how much you can help us meet our objectives in 2014. >> mr. chairman, i've been in and out of hearing this morning. it's a busy day on have but i don't know if anybody asked you about sequestration and effect it would have on our planes but i might ask if you didn't for the record any thoughts you have on sequestration. i'd like to turn, as important as that is, if you would do that that would be helpful to the committee. spent you want me to answer there? >> if you it's been something for the record because of what to do another question. >> i would do that. >> i know we're all very concerned about sequestration. you mention some of the
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capital's you are watching will stand out like to ask you about one now, and that's delhi. i know you're going to be commuting, not commuting that you will make periodic trips to islamabad. we talked about yesterday. you think there's any hope of engaging new delhi and working towards a resolution of that relationship between pakistan and afghanistan and india, in ways that might reassure pakistan? >> senator, at this point i don't have insight into what our government is doing to try to work very delicate relationship between pakistan and 80. i'm certainly aware that is going to be critical to regional stability in the long-term and our success in afghanistan, and if confirmed i suspect i will be involved in the issue and have an opportunity to provide military advice as it is for the leadership works to the diplomatic piece. >> speak to the announcement that pakistan is going to
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release several low-level taliban prisoners at the request of the afghan government. do you think it does suggest we could work towards a negotiated settlement, or do you think that there's just really no path to do between afghan government and the taliban without pakistan's? >> senator, i do know that i would actually support any initiative that would bring a political resolution to the conflict in afghanistan, and i know ambassador grossman, our special representative, is working very hard to affect some reconciliation, working with the afghan government and other interested partner nations. if confirmed, i would actually supportive of that and what i can from a military perspective to support ambassador grossman's efforts for reconciliation. i don't at this time have a sense for the probability of reconciliation in the near term, but again would look forward to support ambassador grossman as
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he tries to lead our government in effect in some type of reconciliation. >> again, thank you for your service. i look forward to seeing you in theater over the next two years, and as we bring this war to a successful conclusion under your leadership. thank you. >> thank you, senator. senator graham. >> thank you, mr. chairman but i'd like to associate myself with senator mccain's comments about general allen. general dunford, thank you for building willing to serve and chairman levin and i will get back with the administration and certainly consult with you about our desire to make sure that we understand the valley of a 352,000 and afghan army for some time to come, and a cost-benefit analysis. the more they can do and the more they have, the less they will need us. so sander levin, i associate myself with the inquiry. general dunford, i believe afghanistan -- i bet if we don't do things differently it will not be successful. and trip wires, do you agree
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with me at the 2014 elections in afghanistan go poorly, then that would be a major setback for the future of afghans and? >> sender, i couldn't agree more. i do believe that elections are critical. critical for two reasons. one is that the pledges that were made in tokyo in chicago are conditional, and part of those conditions involve addressing the issue of corruption. you have a successful elections in 2014. i also think in order for us to give conference to the afghan national security forces and afghan people, legitimate governments must need to be established. over the last soviets i think it's fair to say that security has enabled the development of governance. i think it's also fair to say that over the next couple of years effective government will be necessary to make the gains we've made in security and during. >> president karzai has indicated to me, and i think others, that he intends not to run. i think that would be a good
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decision for the future of afghanistan. and i would just like to say it for some reason he changed his mind and tried to seek another term, that would be absolutely devastating, in my view, for the future of afghanistan. now, the last card to play either united states, would you agree with me, is the security partnership agreement being implemented effectively, robustly, and that the bilateral security agreement is really the last card to play in terms of maintaining a bright future for afghanistan? >> senator, i would agree with the. i think the bilateral security agreement which is a logical extension of the street partnership agreement is what will make the games and we have an fsb ditch the difference between winning and losing? >> i believe so. >> okay. so we would need to come interview, militarily they don't have much of an air force. it would be smart to have f-16s over there for a while
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past 2014? >> i think will have to address a number of areas that will be capability -- >> let's talk about air power. do you think eric our speeded yes. airpower is important. >> they don't have an air force, that could do that. attack helicopters, that makes some sense, right? >> makes sense. >> counter terrorism is an ancient also america to make sure the taliban never come back and al qaeda to recruit, right? >> is. >> into capability can how many drones does the afghan army of? >> they do not have any at this timetime spent the into capabily of the afghan security forces is basically more human than it is technical, and all the technical geewhiz stuff in afghanistan we own, is that correct? >> to my knowledge it is. >> to usurp and iraq's? >> i did. >> would you give a personal favor? if you can find time in your busy schedule. before you make any decisions about what to recommend to the president or this body, take a visit to iraq and see how the place is playing out.
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>> i will, senator. >> because i want you to go, because you and others thought so hard and it is coming apart. and i don't want that to happen to afghanistan. do you agree with me that you could maintain a robust american military presence in afghanistan post-2014 with a fraction of the troops we have today? >> absolutely, senator. >> less than we've had in korea for decades? >> i believe that is the case, senator spent 1000 wouldn't be enough, what its? >> i do not believe 1000 would be enough. >> we will let you figure that out. i know you will advisors wisely. now, about those troops, would you agree with me that it would be ill advised to leave one american military member in afghanistan post-2014 without a status forces agreement giving
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them legal protections against afghan prosecution? >> i think we would need full protection for those in uniform. i think we would need to have appropriate protections for those civilians from our government that are working over there. spent to the afghan partners that's been the norm, and old warson conflux, is that correct? >> it has spent particularly whenever unstable governments and people are still shooting at our troops. >> that's correct spent i've learned a lot about the afghan legal system. it's fair to say it has a ways to go, but hope springs eternal. so i just want to let the committee know, as much as a want to get it right in afghanistan and believed losing with a national security disaster for the ages, if the afghans insist on keeping american soldiers in afghanistan without legal protections as we reported our troops throughout the world, i will not vote for one thing in this war will come to an end to do you think it would be a reasonable approach?
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>> i understand that, center. >> okay, could you communicate that? now, how can you come at me with a detainee problem we have in afghanistan? >> i am. >> i want to call to general huber and the 435 task force because that's where do my reserve duty. they been heckuva job in spite of me, and we are in a position now in the transition phase of taking 3000 plus captures that the american military and coalition forces have captured that have been in our detention system and transition to afghan detention. are you aware that? >> i am. >> from my point of view is going rather well but there's some major problems that i see in the future. one of these problems is the unwillingness of the afghan government to embrace administered detention the are you aware of what i'm talking about? >> im. >> are you aware that i could use the afghan criminal code to prosecute most people in our custody, it would be almost
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impossible? >> im, center. >> do you understand afghan criminal code really doesn't recognize the difference between a common criminal and an insurgent? >> i do speak what you do everything in your power to influence the afghans and tell them that administrative detention similar to what we do under the geneva convention should be continued? and would you please let them know that if i see an effort to undercut administration attention, and this becomes a catch and release program, none of us are going to stand for one person who has been caught three or four times by american forces going back to the battlefield, killing americans again, that we want him to be in the lead. we respect their sovereignty but they have to embrace the fact that they're fighting an insurgency. would you passed that of? >> i would come and that which is, that that is to me first and foremost, not a legal issue but a force protection issue. so we have to find a way to keep
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those individuals off the battlefield. while we are there. >> my last question. my time is it. isn't possible at all to lose in afghanistan it is not a catastrophic to the future of pakistan's? >> senator, i believe that an unstable afghanistan would be significant risk to the stability of pakistan. >> thank you. senator reid? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and thank you, general for your service and service, your family to the united states into them incorporate and i think the president has made a very wise nomination. you have got one of the most difficult jobs ahead of you. i have every confidence he will continue in that tradition of leadership from the front. a couple of the issues. the plan is, in terms of
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transition, one of the major aspects of it is the security forces assistance teams. that would be nato teams that would be at the brigade level. and operating with afghan forces to be enablers, coordinators and in effect the trainers. can you comment upon the progress to date up for me these teams? and also the issue that when a chance to talk about, which is has potentially huge consequences of the blue and green incidents with respect to being able to keep these teens at the brigade level or lower? >> senator, we have started to field the security force assistant teams. my understanding is the first brigade level organization is currently deployed at this time so it's well along the way.
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the teens with established really all over, all of the regional commands are in place. i think that's the next logical step after partnering is to migrate to security force assistant teams as a move towards that long term and during relationship. with regard to the insider threat, initial data that i've had opportunity to look at would certainly indicate that the closer we are to afghan partners, the safer we are. and there's been very few incidents of the insider threat associate with units that are very closely tied in a manner that the security force assistant teams would. the units have had difficulty, once the press have more episodic involvement and we would have with security forces assisted teens. so i'm optimistic that addition to the other steps that are being taken with the insider threat, the security forces assistance teams construct will actually be effective and be a mitigator in fact for the insider threat. again, the data that we have is
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minimal but that's my initial assessment. and if confirmed, i was to pay close attention to the. my perspective is security forces assistance teams are not only the right mechanism for us to take the afghans to the next level but they also are a mitigator for the insider threat that you talk about. >> one of the points, your testimony is that the afghan national army has made some significant progress, given particularly the last several years with training effort that has been led. the police lag behind in terms of capability, coherence, and lacking a judicial system, as senator graham pointed out, even sort of governmental infrastructure. so going forward, the strongest sort of link is the afghan national line your our youth
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conscience of or sensitive ethnic divisions within that force, since ethnic division seems to characterize the country? there's always rumors of, you know, political leaders in certain towns with her own sort of paramilitary aspirations. so can you comment again about sort of the stability of the force and the coherence of the force as a national army, not the ethnic divisions? >> i can't comment in general terms. one, i am aware of those concerns, and i know that general allen and his team are very sensitive to the. and if they will work with the afghans to work with both the afghan national army and the afghan national police reflect the demographic mix of afghanistan, we think that's important, that the army has to be a reflection and not a reflection of one particular ethnic group that will set the conditions for challenges down the road. so i know there've been particular attention to that right now, and that certainly isn't very i would pay
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particular attention to as well. >> one of the major nations you will have as the new commander is to not only make the transition but also to supervise the retrograde of the huge mess of, equipment that are there. the principal route of entry was to pakistan it and i presume the exit would be to pakistan. you mentioned but can you comment further on where you see us in terms of being able to conduct success of those operations and get our material at? >> i can. absolutely the ground lines to communicate in through pakistan are the most efficient and most inexpensive way for us to get our equipment and. there are other ways to get home and we been doing overtime, but it's far more expensive to do air and multimodal transportation back on. i am encouraged that the terms of reference were signed by pakistan from the second of this month, november. we are now moving into a proof
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of concept phase so we can reopen those lines of communication. much of what we call frustrated cargo, those items that have been saying for a while have started to move and so forth. so i believe right now the situation is actually pretty good. >> and your will on your way, or the command is well on its way for the planning of the movement of this equipment. you've identified the equipment that is leading him to quit and that is thinking all that is going on as we speak? >> it is. and i've had with a lot of confidence about that during my last visit. i did have chances in time with u.s. forces, afghanistan and leadership that overseen by. dan on the visit before this last visit, i had a chance to visit what they called -- all the equipment has been staged and brought out. and i think it is being done now most important as an integral part of the campaign. it's not just not getting our equipment a. it's not just about moving it across the ground lines of communication. it's about doing our retrograde
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and redeployment consistent with our campaign objectives. in my perspective that concept is very well understood within isaf and within u.s. forces, afghanistan, and they are well ahead of where they need to be in terms of meeting their objectives. >> your the nato commander. have you had any, i know you've been on the ground in afghanistan to have you had any contact with other nato commanders in preparation? >> senator, i have. i was able to copy secretary panetta to the recent defense ministerial for a couple days. i sat to the bilateral discussions that we had with our nato partners as well as the general session with the defense ministers, and then a silent had a chance to meet many of the nato leaders. if confirmed one of things uncertainty before assuming command is to visit the key capitals of our nato partners and established the personal relationships that i know will be so important in our success over the next couple of years. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you, senator.
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>> how does one adequately iepress his feelings about a special friend? when that friend is also a world icon, a national hero of unimaginable proportion, and a legend whose name will live in n history, long after all herel, e today have been forgotten. >> pate looks down kindly on us when she chose neil to be the first to venture to anothert to world.ure to ano and to have the opportunity to look back from space at them beauty of our own. it could've been another, but it wasn't. and it wasn't for a reason. a no one, no one but no one but n
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could've accepted theepted th responsibility of his remarkable accomplishment with more dignitt and more grace than neilrace armstrong. the embodied all that is good td >> more from the memorial service for neil armstrong, thanksgiving day on c-span at 10 a.m. eastern. just before 11:30 a.m. a behind the scenes look at life as a teenager in the white house with susan ford bales and lyndon johnson rod. >> next a look at the fbi and its role in investigating cyber related crimes. from this morning's "washington journal" this is about 45 minutes. >> this week's segment involving your money will look at the
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fbi's role in fighting cyber crimes. and we are talking about-based terrorism, espionage. computer intrusions, major cyber fraud. will learn a little bit, then we will get to your calls and will learn a little bit first from shawn henry, who was the fbi's executive director for criminal and cyber programs. and been in a peer for quite a number of years by thank you for joining us. >> thanks are having. spent first of all what exactly is a cybercrime? >> when you talk about cyber, i think danger to any type of criminal activity that involves the use of the computer i think that's what most people talk about. when i talk about cybercrime on focusing on intrusions into computer networks. so those networks that we all use every single day come to increase efficiency and effectiveness in and our productivity. but those very same things that make those networks were effective for us make them
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effective for cybercrime. people who jump into these computer networks, the exfiltrate data by terabyte. they're stealing our intellectual property and stealing research and develop, corporate secrets and strategies, personally identifiable information that they can use to make money. it's a huge, huge issue and something we need to be concerned about. >> so we are talking to individuals, small business, corporations, government. how prevalent are cybercrime's? >> it runs the gamut from the smallest networks up to fortune 500 companies, governments, educational facilities. i said that there two types of organizations. those that have been breached and those that don't yet know that they have been breached. and i can't tell you how many times when i joined the fbi's cyber prague ram that agents would show up to an organization, to the company and tell them that the network had been breached because of the course of an unread investigation.
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>> why don't they know? >> is a really complex issue. oftentimes, it's not like when you come home from the movie and defined your television is gone. you know you've been robbed. the way data is excellent but the networks, the data is still there. but the adversaries copy that data and second out of the networks we can't tell that it's been missing. the other issue is that for many, many years with an focus on the perimeter of networks. that is in the kind of mantra for computer security companies that you need to look at your defensive posture and practice what we call defense in depth. having a firewall, intrusion prevention system, using dual factor authentication. that's not working. the most sophisticated adversaries are so clever and so capable that they're able to bypass the traditional defenses and we don't even see them spent phone number is on the bottom of our screens. of lines for democrats and
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republicans and independent apartheid but the fbi's role in fighting cyber crime. we will get to that after one of the question about the adversaries. who are they and where are they? what do you know about them? >> guest: fader really a whole host of episode. i classified into three groups. criminal groups which are made up of primarily organized crime elements, and these are very sophisticated organizations. many of them are operating out of eastern europe. they are collaborating online. they gather virtually they've
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talked to folks who are sympathetic to the traditional jihad because and they're looking to use cyber as a weapon to attack our critical infrastructure. out electrical power grid, our transportation system, et cetera. then there are foreign intelligence services. and these are governments that are looking to steal government secrets, military strategies. but more increasingly more so, they are attacking all of our major corporations. and they are stealing our intellectual property. they're stealing our research and develop and come and they're taking the data that these two and they're providing it to their home countries industries. so they can outcompete. they can out maneuver us in a number of ways in the corporate environment, and make their companies much more competitive
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against the united states. >> host: so to the fbi, what is the fbi's role, doesn't have the resources and if somebody who former fbi, what would you say about its success so far? >> guest: so i think the fbi, particularly in the last five years or so has made significant strides. let me say first that this really is the response in this area needs to be the government as well as the private sector. when you're talking of the government, it's the whole of government. it's the intelligence community, department of defense, fbi, dhs et cetera. there's a whole host of government agencies. the fbi's role, the fbi as you know wears two hats. they have a criminal responsibility as well as a national security responsibility. and the fbi's role is really looking domestically to gather intelligence and mitigate the threat. and the fbi does that in a variety of ways, clicking
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intelligence, sharing it with others and government sharing it with the private sector. the primary goal really trying to attribute he was conducting these attacks but is it a criminal group? is a nationstate? is it a terrorist group? >> host: how is the fbi performing? >> guest: i think the fbi is performing as was again under the circumstances. i've said that we're not winning the fight although we've won many battles but we are not winning long-term because the offense outpaces the defense. the sophisticated adversaries are becoming more sophisticated. there are more groups, adversarial groups that are getting online because of the value of the data. it's incredibly valuable and because of that many of these groups are moving their criminal enterprises, their mood the espionage platforms to the network. so the breath of this threat is getting wider and i don't know
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that we're able to keep up in terms of capacity. >> host: in terms of resources, this in fiscal year 2012, the numbers look like this. costs 147.9 million. that funny support 180 agents and to support electronic surveillance and digital forensics. there's a lot more children with our guest shawn henry but let's get to calls respect winston-salem, north carolina, democratic line. >> caller: my question is, with all the information we have, is the internet about to change as we know it today, in a way that we can't protect ourselves in the future? >> guest: i missed the first part of. >> host: asking if the internet as we know it is changing. can we prevent this, can we get ahead of this? >> guest: again, i think this
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is such a broad threat, and i do know that the average american ever gets to really hear about how substantial the threat is because much of these threats are really worked, are identified via the intelligence community, and they're not necessarily promoted throughout the private sector. so people get to see or hear about it. i think what we need to do is change the focus. again not focusing on just plain perimeter defense, not trying to just protect itself but we need to identify who the threat actors are. i think we need to work to mitigate that threat, whether through policy, through some type of financial sanctions, diplomatic actions and those sorts of things, particularly when we talk about nation states. we need to have a discussion because we are all at respect is not merely a u.s. problem but this is an international problem that we all faced. >> host: what's your sense of the economic damage that has been done already and speak to the secured aspect of it. this is a national ticket issue. >> guest: president obama said
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that this is the most significant economic and national security threat that we face. president bush prior to that said that other than a weapon of mass destruction going off in one of our major cities, this is the most significant nation secretiveness that we face. certainly the government based on all of its understand recognizes, how substantial this is. there have been a number of consultancies that have tried to calculate what the cost of this is. the most recent one i saw was about $400 billion annually, which includes the cost to remediate the networks, loss of productivity, lost intellectual property, et cetera. i don't really know how you quantify this. again, it's so fast and much of it is unreported. countries are oftentimes reluctant to talk about affected been breached because the answer might impact their stock price but it might impact the
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credibility to have with the clients and customers did. they may lose trust in ability to trust networks are i think quite frankly customers should be more forthcoming because this is happening to everybody. companies to think that we don't want to talk about this because this will make us look bad in the eyes of our customers. effect of the matter is it's happening to everybody. i think when we come forward we start to talk about this in a much more public forum. we raise the awareness, we construct put pressure on those that are causing these threats. >> host: let's hear from mary in ohio. you were on with shawn henry. >> caller: it seems to me we have some things we can get solved really fast, like the general on his e-mail. joe the plumber for his social security number, information like that. it seems like atomic energy has pluses or minuses. it's how you use it. i think because of our social security number should only be
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used for social security, it's giving people around the world good ways to track us. and i can't understand how the government can't get on china. this is been going on for years, and just can't get on top of it, that they could get on top of generals that are winning wars. i will hang up. >> guest: so again, i think that this really comes down to a whole of government response, that technology is really just a piece of the answer. you need to have technology on your networks help identify when there's a breach to give you much greater understanding about what's happening on your networks, to look for these intrusions and these incursions into your network. that is a piece of the solution, and part of it is the caller said is really having the discussion with nations that are aggressively pursuing this. there are dozens of countries have these electronic espionage capabilities in place. a specific programs where they're targeting western networks exfiltrate data to empower their private sector, to
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empower their manufacturing base, the retail base, the research and development programs. they're doing at the expense of the american taxpayer. >> host: where is congress on the cybersecurity legislation? >> guest: there are more than 40 bills right now that are on the hill. covering a whole range of cybersecurity issues. some of these bills have been bouncing around for five years or more. and i recognize understand it's an incredibly complex issue. there are lot of different concerns that people have, whether it be the private sector, privacy groups, those in the government, and each has a different agenda our perspective. i think we have to have a greater sense of urgency here because the threat is so significant. i've said that this is an existential threat, that this is a threat to life.
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of our critical infrastructure goes down, imagine if you will, i grew up in the northeast up in new york. i've got friends and family who are still suffering from hurricane sandy. imagine if you will similarly where a major urban area loses its power for, not just seven days, 10 days, 14 days, at seven, seven months. if the attack is so vast and so damaging that was his infrastructure with equipment is destroyed and can't be replaced. these are some of the threats that we've talked about in a government. these are some of the things our adversaries have talked about doing to us. and it's something that we have to certainly raise awareness and take seriously and do so expeditiously. >> host: should point out our guest is currently resident of a tech security company. why did you make the transition out of government?
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>> guest: that's a great question. i enjoyed my time in the fbi, tremendously proud of people i worked with, an omission that i was involved with every single day. i was eligible to retire when folks at crossroads can be talking, and while his mother opportunities to do some things in fortune 500 companies i chose to go to a small startup company because of the vision they had when they were focused on identifying and mitigating a threat, not just the standard run-of-the-mill let's play perimeter defense, let's build an antivirus product. the vision was that we have to have a paradigm shift in the way that we address this threat. and seeing what i saw in the fbi, seeing what i saw across the u.s. government does not only from an operational perspective but from a policy and strategic perspective, i recognize where to change the way we do this. and i wanted to stay in this
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mission. i wanted to stay inside and do it so, it was an opportunity to really bring my experienced a group of folks who have just a tremendous vision, and want to change the way we do this. >> host: let's hear from mark in michigan. >> caller: hello. good morning. mr. henry, my question has to do with the drone that we lost in the mideast where they apparently tricked you into landing in their country against our wishes. how much technology could we lose there? how was the investigation going on that issue? and i think that those drugs should have some sort of a self-destruct, that if they do happen, you know, loss of control occurs, that you can burn of all the relevant circuitry in that high-tech, and what needs to be kept secret.
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>> guest: so, i don't have specific information about that particular case, but what the caller raises i think, if, in fact, there was some intrusion into a computer network that may have controlled that piece of military credit, i have no knowledge at all of that particular case. at all of our networks are connected, and the vulnerability is such that if an adversaries able to access network, they can make changes to what equipment does. so one of the threats i talked about, these terrorist groups that are looking to talk at our infrastructure. they're looking at industrial control systems. these are computers that control the big equipment that powers our infrastructure. if those computers are infiltrated, data is changed. that equipment is destroyed or altered. that equipment will cease to function the way it's intended to function. causing great damage. >> host: let's hear from
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linda, knoxville, tennessee. linda is a democrat for shawn henry. good morning. >> caller: my qualifications are commenting on this is i've been originally and arpanet user, and more laterally an internet user since 1976. my question is, what role has the successful effort by seminal low-level operating system companies, most of the microsoft, had at getting laws passed that give them no legal liability when flaws in the software open up gaping holes for intrusion? >> guest: so, i don't know specifically what microsoft's lobbying process is. i think that companies need to understand the impact of their products on the private sector. i know many companies in the software world who have worked very diligently to close gaps in
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their product has relates to security. i know that they've worked with law enforcement and others to understand what those threats are so that they can be more aggressive and more robust in their capabilities. >> host: back, take us back into the work of the fbi itself. does it have the know-how to combat this problem the way that you think it should? >> guest: the fbi has made tremendous strides in hiring your when i started in the cyber side, we looked for good investigators and tried to teach them how to be technologists. we made a big change in that, recognizing it was much easier to take a sophisticated technologists and turned them into investigator. so when i was in the bureau we made great strides in hiring, and recruiting out of some of the best technical schools, universities in the country,
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people have spent 10 years in systems administrator and computer scientists, and then as a second career brought him to the fbi. with those skills they very clearly understand what technology is being breached and how to better track the adversary. we turned them into good investigators were able to get a good sight picture on your adversaries are working with others in the community. >> host: what is missing as far as the fbi approach? >> guest: i think, i think the capacity, just in terms of the resources. the fbi came is one piece of the solution. this is a whole of government response to the fbi's role being investigations domestically against criminal enterprises, against foreign intelligence services, trying to identify his adversaries are so that some action can be taken, whatever it may be. but again, as i said earlier i have yet to come across a network that has not been breached. my time in your and the private
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sector, it really is capacity. the fbi does not have the ability to respond each and every threat in this country. >> host: what does the fbi have and not have access to when it goes to investigate a cybercrime? >> guest: so, when there's a breach into the computer network, there's a couple things that need to be asked, not unlike your traditional crime. what happened, why did it happen, who did it? and that's a very, very key, important point. you've got to understand who actually caused the breach so you can take some sanctions, some actions against them. when the fbi responds, not unlike a traditional crime we are looking for fingerprints or shell casings, you're looking for clues. in working in coordination with the private sector, the victim, you can look at the network. you can look at logs that indicate when somebody may have made access. you look at logs that indicate
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changes have been made in the network that give you the clues like a fingerprint or the shell casings that help to identify and attribute who the actors are. >> host: let's hear from south carolina. '01 on the republican line for shawn henry. good morning. >> caller: the recent hacking in south carolina, what is the fbi's role? is there one? >> guest: so, the recent hacking in south carolina, i think the question was was related to national security. i don't have the specifics on that particular case but my understanding from what i've read his that was a person identifiable information which typically indicates an organized crime group. you're looking at these groups that are stealing data that they can then turn around and monetize and turn into actual hard cash. when we're looking at social ticketing hours and the like, that's indicative of an organized crime. that being said it's not
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necessarily 100% true. there could certainly be some national security aspects. sometimes an adversary whenever access to use as a launch point to attack other networks, or to maybe some very dashing the various ask . >> host: joshua oklahoma. good morning. >> caller: i have to statement real quick like. on the internet, is it true they recently, just and lasting or three days, did obama sign or that they would eventually turn over the internet to the nsa and to the united nations? and -- >> guest: let me stop you there. so, so there's been discussion about an executive order being signed that might fill a void related to the legislation that
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has not yet been approved up on the hill. so this administration has put forth legislative proposals that would allow for better information sharing that would allow for harsher penalties for those who breached networks. .. >> my father was a new york city
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police detective for a long time, and he said if you robbed one bank, you'd probably get away with it. the guys that get caught are those who rob five banks, 15 banks, 20 banks. along the way, they make errors. it's in a similar way. if you get a broad understanding across a large data set, and you look at a volume of information or intelligence, you're able to really start to attribute what's happening, and when we talk about intelligence sharing, that's absolutely what occurs in that space. >> we had a second comment, go ahead. >> caller: okay. i had my second comment for the previous caller. on energy and gasoline and things like that. since the 80s, we had the technology to run water through our engines. stanley meyer perfected that in the 80ing. i don't know what happened to that.
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he had patents on it and provedf his information, even most of the technology on it, and, also, we have the processer by paul and the seg generator that was developedded by a man from europe. he's still alive. his name is john thill. >> host: we'll let you go, back to the topic of cybercrime here with the guest shawn henry, formally from the fbi. hearing from arnie now. >> caller: we're riflely concerned about identity theft, and especially as it occurs over the internet. there are -- my basic question is do any of these products that we see advertised on television and/or talk radio -- there's one prominent one starting with the letter l, and my wife knows about it.
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she wants me to sign up for $160 a year that will protect us from identity theft over the computer. are any of these products effective? >> guest: so it sounds like what you're talking about, one of the services that identifies when your private information may have been breached or stolen and protects you in terms of dealing with creditors or attorneys and the like, those may or may not be successful. i think the fact that your monitored and identified or notified is helpful, and it's of value, but i think what we want to do is look to prevent rather than merely react to the issue, and i think that in crowd strike, for example, identifies who the threats are, the adversaries, and stop them from attacking our networks. again, one of the strategies the u.s. government can use in a better way.
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not merely in a reactive position, but in a pro-active, offensive, and strategic position. >> host: knowing about the structure within the fbi, what structure will they have in assisting the cyber crime division in assessing and eliminating threat? >> guest: great question. we work very, very closely. quite frankly, the threat we talk about from foreign intelligence services is a counterintelligence responsibility, and they are using the cyber as a weapon or vector. many of the same things that have been occurring for thousands of years, people have snuck in under a tent; walkedded out with a pa pie ruse -- the secret plans on it. fast forward to the current day, and we're merely using the networks as a vector into organizations to steal data. the counterintelligence division and cyber division in the fbi work hand in hand.
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bringing expertise dealing with foreign intelligence services, understanding their tactics, methodologies, cyber from a technical perspective with their capabilities together working in a coordinated fashion having a greater impact on the adversary. >> host: by the way, the recent washington pote piece, obama signed secret directive to help thwart cyber attack. this was published last week dating back to mid-object saying the action took place and write the the president signed a secret directive allowing the military to act aggressively to thwart attacks. it's a presidential policy directive 20 establishing a broad set of standards to guide operations of the federal agencies in confronting threats in cyberspace. anything else you want to add to that? >> guest: it's a secret order. no. >> host: moving on to mike,
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st. petersberg, florida, republican. >> caller: what you're just speaking to, the first amendment has been -- has been lost, for security supposedly, and nobody really knows what the real motivation is. the country has gone down a path where we can't believe any of you including this gentleman. good day. >> host: what do you make of that sentiment? >> guest: that he can't trust me? i think there's a lot of real patriots in the u.s. government who have worked hard and made a lot of personal sacrifice to make this country safer. i think that people need to understand what the threat is, and if you understand what the threat is, what the threat is day-to-day, they would be much
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more secretary -- receptive to the investigative tactics. i look at 9/11, and if you can imagine august of 2001, if somebody in the government came forward and said in august of 2001 when you go to the airport, there's a big threat from people who are going to try to blow up planes. you need to take off your shoes, you need to take toiletries, put them in a plastic bag, take off your jacket, the laptop out of the case, people would have been up in arms. this is invasion of the privacy, absolutely not, wii not allowing it, it's inconvenient. fast forward, and planes crash into buildings, and people understand what the threat is. now this is a problem. now taking off the shoes is an inconvenience, but i understand, i get it. i don't want to do it, but i understand the risks and will make the concessions to be safer. i see in the cyber environment,
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we're in the same police place. something bad's going to happen, the digital e equivalent of planes flying into buildings will happen, and people will ask why we have not done anything about it. the caller an others need to educate themselves and really get a better understanding. to address one of the points because this is really important. for 24 years as an fbi agent, i fought to protect people's civil liberties. i believe in freedom of speech and the u.s. constitution. i swore an oath to protect it as did many of the colleagues i worked # with. i take up bridge with somebody questioning and challenging patriotism and the willingness to die for the constitution of the united states of america. >> host: on to glen falls, new york now, richard, independent for shawn henry. >> caller: good morning. >> host: morning. >> caller: i believe there is cyber crime, but most of the people that are pushing it
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are -- have a financial interest in the subject. that always leaves me with a little of skepticism in other words, i'm agreeing a little bit with the previous caller. not calling you not a patriot. not saying you're not a patriot, but i'm just saying the actual degree and sophistication of cyber crime, i think, still remains to be discovered. my question to you is that you've been talking about cyber crime as going in one direction only, and an attack on the united states, but i think you have to also mention that the united states also participates in cyber crime, probably in the three divisions that you mentioned. there's probably corporate cyber crime against other nations in the country, i mean in the world, and, of course, we know
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that the united states government did some cyber crime in -- against a nuclear reactor of another nation so i think you ought to mention that also. thank you. >> host: sthawn henry. >> guest: so the first point regarding, you know, people looking to make money off of this, i think that i'd ask the caller and others to look at the people who are actually talking about this every single day. people who have seen this threat from a very different perspective. they have not just looked at headlines that somebody lost 50,000 user names and pass words
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or stole $25 out of my account. what they've seen in their day to they life is threats on infrastructure, attacks on u.s. commercial space, military networks, government networks. they have seen it every single day. i've been talking about this while i was in the fbi for many, many years, and look me up on things i said for years and what i say now tracks having no idea at all that i would move at some point into the space, but it goes to the question earlier, why move into the space? i moved into the space because there's a problem that needs to be fixed. that's why i moved into the space. i didn't move into the space and promote it hoping i would make a dollar off of it, but i want people to understand the threat is absolutely real. >> host: last couple minutes here, boston, next call, democrat, doug, for mr. henry. good morning. >> caller: yeahings hi, the last caller's question. from the iranian perspective,
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i'd like to remind you it was the united states that fired the figure shot when it launched the virus against nuclear -- obviously, a really dangerous situation, and perhaps you didn't they they would respond. if that's the case, you shouldn't be in the job you're in. anyway, have a nice day. >> host: anything to respond to there. displg i don't know what the question was. >> host: mike in dover, ohio, independent caller. question, comment? >> caller: good morning. i'm fascinated on how many people are against the cyber security act. why would the government have to tell you to lock your front door and close your windows at night to keep people from breaking? , and if you lived in a neighborhood where there was a large number of these, it just makes common sense that the neighbors would get together and ask or tell each other about the different methods being use, not what you have in your house, where you've got it hidden or
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anything else, but that's your material. if you run a business, and you're not going to lock your front gate or lock the doors or your cabinets or anything like that, you're an idiot. just a plain idiot. why the government has to tell you that. if you had the hope diamond on display in your jewelry store on a flat table with a little table cloth there on it, and you don't have a front door to it, and it's in a high crime neighborhood or in any neighbor, really, how long do you expect your display to be there when you leave for the night when you don't have a front door on it? >> host: shawn henry. >> guest: that's a really great characterization of this issue. i think that much of this should be intuitive. i don't think that people understand the threat. if you're in a high crime neighborhood, something to be concerned about, but i don't know that people understand the interpret is is a high crime
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neighborhood. while it is, in my opinion, the greatest invention of my lifetime, we have to concerned about it, and we have to navigate the threats. the caller's representation and characterization is right on the money. >> host: george from pennsylvania on the line, democrat, hey, george. >> caller: yes, good morning. i believe in cyber security. it's necessary; however, the thing about homeland security is overblown. i think senator lieberman created the job for himself, and also a new industry in the united states. how much more do our products cost us because of the overblown security, and it's all based on fair, you know, and fear sells votes, and that's why we had this. all of this over inspection at airports, it's all in excess. that's all i have. thank you. >> host: too much he says. >> guest: well, again, i've
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been in the government, in the fbi, i've had the -- i don't know if it's a privilege, but the occasion to see what the threats are every single day. the threats from the cyber perspective, frankly, the threat from the physical perspective. there are adversaries looking to harm us from the cyber perspective and the physical perspective. they are significant. those who i work with sacrificed themselves, sacrificed times with their families, times personally to help to protect this country. i can't be prouder of being affiliated with those people, and i think that citizens need to understand what those threats are, and that they need to educate themselves so they have a better understanding of what's really happening.
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>> host: susan, virginia, republican, good morning. >> caller: good morning to the guest you have on c-span this morning. i'm not sure where the last few callers they live and what world they live in, but having been brought up here on the northeast coast of the united states and having a family member involved in 9/11, i must say some of these people must have their head in the sand with regards to terrorism. overall and with regard to cyber terrorism, i just want to say thank you to you and thank you to all the people that are working so hard, and i know what the fbi and what the police force is doing, and i want to say thank you to those who don't have heads in the sand and for the work you're doing so keep up with the good work. thank you. >> guest: thank you. i mean, those are the types of things that really help, i know, to motivate folks that work. it makes them feel good every sing the day. >> host: a couple callers ago mentioned # homeland security. speak coordination with the fbi and other agencies in the area.
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>> again, a whole of government response. the fbi has a role. dhs has a substantial role in helping to manage consequences and alert the private sector about the threats. the fbi and the dhs workedded very closely, a great example in the initiative called the industrial control system where the fbi and department of homeland security officials have gone out to critical infrastructures, nuclear power plants, electric power stations, ect., talk to them about the threat, provided them with very specific tactical information allowing them to better protect themselves, protect the equipment they are operating, and to make the country safer. it's a great example, but the fbi and dhs have to work collaboratively along with the intelligence community to make this country safer. >> host: robert, new jersey, democratic caller. hi, robert. >> caller: how are you doing? >> guest: good. >> caller: i have a question
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about the quality of the cyberspace due to the fact there's so many outlets with apps and everything going on through the space being absorbed by a lot of different things. you know, the new phones and everything, but we can't get something simple like training procedures that bring, you know, suspicious problems going on where, like, i'll give you an example. you know, like, when the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the pilots that were from the country's, you know, that we were not really aware of some of these people, but they were trained to land a plane and not, you know, take off a plane, but not land a plane, and that's kind of, you know -- isn't that like an open sore that we don't
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follow through with things? especially with the cyber thing now, new apps coming out of the woodwork, and i'm concerned about it. >> host: thanks, shawn henry. >> guest: i think one of the points to make based on the caller's comment is the need for intelligence. the caller talk about, early terrorism, people learned how to fly planes, but not to land them. that's a clue. that should be indicative of a nefarious act. maybe it's not, but that would require some investigation. in the cyber environment, it's the same thing. intelligence is the key to understanding exactly what's occurring, not just what happened, but how and why they did it, and sharing information and intelligence, you have to identify threats before they are a problem. >> host: shawn henry, the guest, formally with the fbi, topic on cyber crimes out there against the country. thank you for your time and insight this morning. >> guest: thank you for having me, appreciate it.
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>> the mind set of the world well into the 1990s was that wire line access with stuff on
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poles or buried in the ground was the key to understanding competition and telecommunications. it's not -- the intriguing part of the wireless story is how very few people inside the industry, that's why the mckenzie report came out how it did. it was not just judge green and the fcc who did not understand the potential of wireless. it was the entire industry except for a few visionaries who were sort of regarded as kooks, and what turned out to be the case was the hope that some people had, that you could have a reboastly competitive, fixed line access industry, you know, where a half dozen companies offer telephone service over wire, either cables or copper wire pairs like the telephone company, that vision was mistaken. thirty years later, a good
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idea to break up at&t? stanford roger noel and mit jerry houseman discuss pros and cons tonight at eight eastern on "the communicators" tonight on c-span2. >> how does one adequately express his feelings about auate special friend? when that friend is also a world icon, a national hero of unimaginable proportion, and a legend whose name will live in history long after all here today have been forgotten. >> fate looked down kindly on ug when she chose neil to be the first to venture to another world.se to have the opportunity to look back from space, at the beauty of our own, it could have been
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another, but it wasn't. it wasn't for a reason.d it no one, no one but no one could have accepted the responsibilito of his remarkable accomplishment with more dignity and more grace than neil armstrong. he embodied all that is good and all that is great about america. more from the memorial service for neil armstrong thanksgiving day on c-span at 10 a.m. eastern, and just before 11:30, a behind the scenes look as life as a teenager in the white house with susan ford bails and lyndon johnson-rob, and how scientists use game skills and gaming theories to solve world problems. >> richard lain of the southern
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baptist convention said today republicans lost the latino vote and ultimately the lexes in the primaries. this was part of an american enterprise institute discussion on immigration policy featuring the views of self-identified conservatives. this is about 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everybody. i'm nick schultz, fellow at the american prize institute, the editor of american.com, aei's flag ship on line magazine. i want to thank you for coming to our event today. conservatives and immigration reform, now what? i'd like to thank, before you start, i want to thank my colleague, dan rothschild here at aei who had the idea for the
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event and helped bring it together. dan's had an interest in the issue for a long time, as have i, and it's timely and important that we talk about some of these things. you know, there's been a tension at the heart of the conservative movement's approach to immigration for as long as i followed politics and longer than that. there's two camps that jockeyed for control to define the right approach on immigration policy. this will be a crude generalization, but i believe a fair one. libertarians do not mind the presence of the large numbers of immigrants here in the united states illegally, and they will also welcome much more legal immigration as well. we can call this the wall street journal wing. on the other hand, there's conservatives preserved about
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prereceiverring america's culture and maintenance of the social order. the presence of large numbers of people in the united states in violation of american law is inherently problematic. what's more, many are not wild about the influx of large number of legal immigrants either arguing that any culture needs sufficient time for new arrivals to assimilate, and that cultures benefit from periodic pauses in immigration. now, there's other camps as well. moral an social conservatives, the catholic church and other religious groups who favor a light touch approach to immigration for what they believe to be social justice ground. there's a deep tension and division on the right on immigration, and there has been for decades now. now, the recent presidential election has brought the immigration issue once again to the center of american politics.
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governor rormny received a small percentage of latino and asian voters, less than george w. bush received, it's often noted, and many said his views on immigration and conservatism's approach to immigration generally were to blame for the g.o.p.'s poor showing this time aarp. it's worth noting, i think, that romney tried to appeal in some respects to all factions, all conservative factions, on immigration. he repeatedly said that he was in favor of more legal immigration emphasizing legal, but, also, particularly in the primary season, took a harder line on the question of illegal immigration. what we at aei decided to do in the wake of the election is convene a thoughtful pam of folks to discuss conservatives and immigration reforms. now, i should note that this is the american enterprise institute for public policy research. it is not the institute for figuring out how to get conservatives elected or how to get republicans elected.
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we're interested in finding the right solutions to public policy, problems, and issues, and immigration is no different. i asked the panel is that while the temptation in the present moment will be to talk solely about immigration in the context of electoral politics, and it's certainly an interesting and appropriate thing to do, it's more important we make progress in analyzing and elevating sound public policy op immigration. if those sound public policies happen to be political winners, all the better. we've seen pundits and policymakers in the wake of the election offer advice like republicans should be bind a one-time amnesty or they need to back comprehensive immigration reform or republicans need to stop building walls and start reaching out to hispanics, maybe these are wise steps, but almost autoof the analysis in the wake of the election is driven by concerns about political expediency, and not necessarily because the person add have kateing this --
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advocating this position believes it's sound policy much it's not clear they are good politics either, and we'll get into that today. in general, i hope we can do better. to do so, we've assembled a distinguishedded group. we have alfonso, the executive director of the latino partnership for conservative principles. he was the first chief of the u.s. office of citizenship. he was appointed by george w. bush, responsible for appointing programs to educate imgrants about the rights and speedometers much citizenship and encourage their integration into american civic culture. brad bailey, the co-founder of solutions, and he was vice president of operations for three family owned houston area restaurants. he co-founded texas immigration solutions in 2012, and they seek
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to typed solutions to the u.s. immigration policy. brad serve on the platform of the republican party of texas. rich is the president of the ethics and religious commission, the southern baptist convention's official entity designed # to address ethical concerns with particular attention to the impact on american families and their faith. richard is on a national magazine dedicated to religious values, christian ethics, and cultural trends. last, but certainly not least, my friend, senior editor nor national review magazine and columnist for bloomberg view, published numerous articles in newspapers like the financial times, "wall street journal," and he's also the author, and i didn't know this until today of a monograph aei published called
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"the mystery of japanese growth," a fellow of the economic affairs in lop don and media fellow at hoover institution. thank you, all, for joining us today. this is how it works. we'll have panelists talk for ten minutes, and i may ask questions as we go along, but we'll leave time for questions from the audience. as you listen to the panelists, please, keep them in mine, and there's microphones going around later so there's a nice, spirited discussion. with that, going to start, thanks. >> okay, thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you this morning. certainly, sins the election, there's. change in the political land scape when it comes to latinos and immigration and i'm encouraged by that, optimistic.
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i think next year we may get something done that's constructive on the issue. talking about immigration, it's a hard thing not to talk about the politics of it because, frankly, i believe that if we have not been able to achieve immigration reform, it's because of the politics, not the american people. the american people want to see immigration reform, and they want to see it soon. border security, some form of legalization, guess worker program, path to citizenship. it's no surprise to me somebody who was very involved in the election cycle that governor romney lost the election. i think the writing was on the wall, and i, and many others, said before the election, that
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we had a problem with immigration, and i know that after this election there will be a lot of interspection and analysis how to get the la teen know vote, but in the end, to me, it was the latino vote or not prevailing, precisely because of the vote, and specifically because of the issue of immigration. if governor romney would have had a more destructive view on the issue from the get-go, from the primaries, he would have been a competitive candidate, and at the end, he would have ended up prevailing in the election. he didn't win contrary to what he thinks, and not because latinos voted for obamacare or entitlements. they just didn't like him because of the things said on immigration. he said people should self-deport, sounds similar to
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what chris would say, the secretary of state of kansas who was one of the co-authors of the arizona law and very involved with the main anti-immigrant groups, and, in fact, when they endorsed myth mitt, they went out of the way to embrace that endorsement and issued a statement saying that chris was a great leader on the fight against illegal immigration. his idea was, and i don't think it was necessarily governor romney's idea, but i think it was the idea of many g.o.p. establishment strategists that, you know, run a campaign in the primary, being a restriction, anti-imgrant, and then after the election, you do what i called old switch-o-roo, but they were
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listening. when you say one thing, but then after the election, you didn't mean a model for the nations, but for the states, and then you say i didn't mean the entire arizona law, that's the entire e-verify portion of it. then people don't trust you. the vote was for obama because they didn't trust romney on the immigration question and didn't like the rhetoric so there was no reason for this, because as i say, the majority of the american people want to see immigration reform, and this is something very important, and this shows why politics have to do with immigration policy. i think the anti-immigration lobby has been very effective in creating the perception that the conservative base is anti-imgrant. that's just not true. poll after poll shows, study after study shows that the majority of conservatives believe in border security, but
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also believe in immigration reform. at the latino partnership, before the primary season, we had the group -- commissioned a study to show -- to study the immigration views of likely republican primary voters. these are your tea parties, people committed to the conservative movement. as long as border security was there, they supported legalization, supported a path to citizenship, supported a guess worker program. we included the word "amnesty," and when we have border security plus amnesty, 52 #% of them support that idea. the anti-immigration law, and what i mean, is specifically federation for american immigration reform, numbers usa, center for immigrational studies, in 2006, as you know, they got very involved in the political process. they influenceed a small group
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of republicans to hijack the issue and articulate an appty-immigration restriction rhetoric that led in 2006, a wedge immigration, and from 2006-2012, the republican party is perceived as restrictionist party, even though in the era, all the presidents, presidential candidates have been pro-immigration. ronald reagan was solidly for immigration reform, and if you go to youtube and google reagan-mondale debate, reagan making the case not for legalization, but for amnesty. using that word. now, republicans are pro-immigration, but they have been afraid for the past six years of anti-immigration lobby with an incredible political machine, and anybody who says
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anything constructive on immigration will be labeled pro-amnesty, and certainly, some talk show hosts, and now, i think this election cycle dramatically changed that. i can, at least, number half a dozen talk shows that said, you know what? my position evolved, and now i'm for immigration reform, but that is good because it will give cover to a lot of republicans who have avoided the issue or want to deal with the issue to actually do it so we have to reclaim the issue, and we can do it because immigration and being for immigration reform is actually the conservative position. restrictionists at the end is part of the nationalist, protectionist paradigm, and if we are the party of the family, if we are the party of the free market, the g.o.p. is, we should not, in my way, have a restrictionist position.
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if we are for the family, i don't think why we should be calling for separating hundreds of thousands of families in this country, many families have been here for decades. if we're the party of the free market, why should we believe that government should tell american companies that cannot find foreign workers, cannot find american workers, that they shouldn't be able to bring in foreign workers in an effective, timely fashion. that's against the basic prince. s of the free market so we can reclaim the issue and frame it in conservative terms, because as i said, we're the party of the family, and we're the party of the market. now, what exactly this is going to look like, i don't know. i started my rounds right after i got back from dc going to the hill and the senate and house, and i can sense there's a great
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environment to actually do something. the question is, is it going to be comprehensive? i doubt it. today, what we knew as comprehensive reform in 2006 and 2007 is not necessarily what the administers is talking about. they keep talking about comprehensive reform, but i wonder if that reform includes a guess work program. in the end, that's the key to resolving this issue. they don't want to see a guest worker program because they don't want more foreign workers enter the country. they want to ensure that the labor market, the labor supply remains small. it is key, because, again again, to grow the economy, we need to grow many industries that need
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that foreign work force. the last immigration reform that we had on the reagan years lacked a workable guest worker program. that was amnesty. we gave am amnesty to 3 million individuals. at the time, the market had to absorb 3 # million individuals. what happened? immigrants came in to do jobs americans didn't want or where there was no one there to do them. another community from documented imgrants was created. we need a mechanism to facilitate the legal flow of the foreign workers that america needs, and it can be a mechanism with quarters arbitrarily set by government because the issue of legal government is the guest worker programs highly regulated and in some areas or for some type of jobs, we're going to cap -- have ridiculous quotas
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that don't represent the needs of the market. when you have that, people are going to continue to enter illegally. what we need is a demand based guest worker program that allows companies who can want find american workers to bring the foreign workers that they need as many as they need. we shouldn't be concernedded, you know, a sluggish economy we have right now because if you have an economy that's not growing, you won't bring in as many workers. if it's a booming economy, you bring in more workers. let the market work. in the end, that's the only way to fix the problem. in terms of legalization, i don't know how that will be done. what i'm seeing from my meetings in congress, this will be done in a piecemeal basis rather than a comprehensive basis, and at the end, i don't know if we will get, for those who didn't hear
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or even for the young, undocumented imgrants, parents, so-called dreamers, i don't know if there's a path to citizenship for them, but, serge, i think for them, we can probably get to a alternative dream act suggested by senator marco rubio, but at the end, it depends on the willingness from republicans, but also from the president to actually sit down and negotiate, and it's not only republicans. i know we've heard this a lot, that it's all republicans want to do anything op immigration reform. well, nothing happened on reform because the president didn't lead. he had a house and senate, a democratic house and senate, didn't do anything to push reform, and he didn't engage republicans. this time around, immigration's a complex issue. you need the president of the united states food what george bush in 2007 to send members to congress and negotiate with the -- the opposition in
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leadership. if that doesn't happen, then we have a problem. i want to see how willing the president's willing to negotiate with republicans, but i am on optimistic. at the end, i think the biggest challenge or controversy will be whether we get a path to citizenship for some or not. thank you. >> thank you. brad? >> thank you aei for having this and the panel, commend everyone for the work, but approaching the subject, i'm not a public policy guy. i'm not a washington insider. i'm a restaurant owner from houston, texas. i can tell you my brief experience on it, a lifelong experience on this, but brief political side of it is back in september of last year, every day in the restaurant, we have komida, breaking bread from the house, front of the house staff,
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waiters, waitresses, and the kitchen staff and talk about showing up on time, right amount of food on the table, not wasting. owning a restaurant is like babysitting, so it's the moment to hit those points, and after that, i had my long time employee who has been with us over ten years, he came to us and wanted to talk to me about something, but i want to tell you about the person before i start is over ten years ago, he worked for the family's restaurant because his previous employer would not give him off on sunday to go to church with his family. it's important to note. it was not the job or the work conditions or the pay. it was because he wanted to go to church with his family. turns out, one of the greatest employees we've ever had. i worked shoulder to shoulder with him for ten years, and he pulled me aside and asked, brad, i have a question for you. i know you and your family are very conservative and i just want to know how you can support
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republicans when republicans hate hispanics. i, you know, my chest gets out, and i go through stump speech of pro-life, pro-family, religious freedoms, and he just nodded his head, and, you know, went off, but that night or couple nights later was when governor perry was literally attacked by not just one, but several people on the stage, and i watched that debate through his eyes, and, you know, pardon the pun, but, houston, we have a problem, where i'm from, yeah, we have a problem. it really catapulted me to get involved, and i asked friends, what do we do? what do we do? you know, one of my good friends said, you know, you're a business owner, you know how broke p the system is, talk about it. little did i know how involved i'd get, but i pushed to get on the republican party of texas
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state platform. i always voted republican my whole life. my dog's name is w. [laughter] he has a 32% approval rating, but i still love him. [laughter] i never really got involved in the day-to-day, and at the convention, republican subcommittee, the platform of the subcommittee that started talking about the problem, and i noticed they come in, testimony from all types of people, about five people on the subcommittee, and people came in, and they were physically just couldn't stand each other. fighting on the issue for ten years. we had my militia there, tea pa, pro-business crowd there, hispanic leaders that were there, religious conservatives there. it looks like this panel. they really just were -- did not like each other. we started talking about things, and, you know, it was roberts
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rule of ore. thirty-seconds to speak, blah blah blah, and finally, i said, spin the rule, sit around the table and talk about it. the minutemen militia who volunteered time on the border, we all agree, i think, on this panel that our immigration system's broken. in texas, we have 1200 miles of border with mexico. it's broken. no one knows more than how to fix the problem than the minutemen militia. i yielded my time to them. how do we fix it? as we did that, people put down their arms, their weapons issue and started talking about solutions. you know, complaining about the problem, which i feel the 2010 republican party platform in texas looked like was a lot of complaints, a lot of problems. oh, this is wrong, this is wrong. this is wrong. we know it's wrong. how do we fix it? i believe in texas we fix things. we did that with tort reform, the balanced budget amendment.
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our legislature meets once every two years which washington could learn from. you know, we -- our energy policy, you know, we fix problems, we don't complain about them. everyone came around, that's right, we have to do that. we came out of there unified. we had a one-pager of how we can address the immigration problem, 50 ,000 foot level, but it's one page, and we went to the floor of the convention, and i'll tell youth about the convention. it's the largest gathering of conservatives in the nation. 8,000 dell galts at -- delegates. we start walking into the floor, all the sudden, i see no amnesty stickers, big campaigns going on. oh, we're going to have a nice debate. everything will be going wrong. little did i know, it was on. they called us every name in the book. they did everything.
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when we went to the floor, we had the minutemen militia testify, religious groups testify, hispanics testify. feeling a part of the therapeutic dr. phil session in the subcommittee, but five times, four or five times, they attacked our platform. not a portion of the platform, but just our one-pager. five times they came out us. five times over two-thirds of the 8,000 delegates there supported our solution over the rhetoric of old. that opened a lot of people's eyes that conservatives really do understand this problem. i believe the vocal minority hijacked the issue, and they got us all fighting, and they've done that on purpose to make sure nothing happens. we want to get it fixed. you know, it's harming our economy in texas.
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it's the federal government has failed. both sides of the aisle failed on this. how do we fix it? it was really interesting. when we came out, the media ran into the cop sense and, i, you know, the front page of the news or fort worth telegram, g.o.p. shifts on immigration. dallas morning news chronicle -- amazing to see that, wow, we were going to come in here labeling them as anti-his panic, anti-anything, and it was a total different route. people came to me and friends of mine said we got to take this to the national level. we went to the national platform in tampa, talk about it, got a national guest worker endorsement on the republican national convention platform which was great. thought work was over, and election day hit, and wednesday my phone blows up again, and it's time to getñjr back in the debate again. we have to do more. we have to talk about this. you know, i believe free market
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solutions are a part of this. i believe in strong border security. the anti-immigration groups will try to label us as open borders, big business, wants cheap labor. i can tell you if we can fund blackwater security forces in iraq, and i'm not say using blackwater, but a type of security force that's licensed in doing a good job, we need to do that. we need to secure our borders. in texas, i can tell you, i've been down first hand in burkes county texas the effect it has on property owners, everything. we have to look at every option available. it's in the national security to do so. i am not for open borders in any way, shape, or form. ias an poir, somebody who uses e-verify, how broke p e-verify is. folks, i'm telling you right now, i'm all for employment verification system. we need an employment
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verification system, but e-verify, you know, makes the united states postal service look efficient. it's a government-run software program. i don't need to say anything more than that. it's a government run software program that needs to be modernized. as an employer, nine out of ten businesses have a credit card terminal. you can get one on your iphone even, and you can have visa, mastercard, american express, swipe the credit card, and it tells you, accepted, declined, card's stolen, tracks all the information. why not have american companies take the program over and streamline it making it efficient where you can get a reading? make it more, you know, i've had employees not past e-verify, and they have to go to the social security administration and stand in line for three days to get it corrected. that's not conservatism. how have we. , you know, spoon fed to say that a government-run software program is a conservative
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solution? people talk about it all the time. we need the free market to do this. we need to take that over, but the social security cards are not modernized since 1936. that just blows me away right there. the same social security -- i mean, if we printed the social security card on the same type of paper we do a u.s. pass part that's anticounterfeit proof or like a $5, it would help the process, but those who take the documents, it's troubling. we have to look at how we address that. our temporary worker program passed is really the biggest portion, temporary worker, guest worker what have you, it has to be self-funding through fines and fees, zero budget impact item. the other thing is we value the american worker as number one. only if the american worker is not available for that job will
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we go the guest worker route. let me expand. i think the states should have guest worker programs. our state, texas, for example, the texas work force commission, as an employer, lay someone off, they go through the work force commission, get up employment benefits. if you fire them, they appeal to the work force commission. nobody knows who is unemployed more than the texas work force commission. no one knows the job creators better than the texas work force commission. if they could administer a guest worker program versus coming up to the disney world of government, it would be much more efficient-run process. we need the states to administer things and work with the federal government and streamline the process. we have to make sure the american worker is number one. number one gets hired. if they are not available, go to the guest worker route. we laid out from health care issues, making sure that each employee gets -- each guest worker has a health insurance
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and also a bimetric io dent any cation -- identification card. thank you. [applause] >> i don't know as the moderator if i'm dr. phil, but, anyway, richard, over to you, please. >> thank you. i noticed there's one thing that's quite up usual about this panel, usually there's high expectations of us, all but one of us is left-handed. you have to be enterprising to be victorious over the prejudices of right-handed people to remain left-handed. [laughter] we are triumphant. poll after poll shows 70% of the american people would be more likely to support a candidate who was for comprehensive, fair, and just immigration reform. that included secure borders. unfortunately, that 70% are focusedded more in the middle, those who are independents, than
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those who vote in democratic primaries and those who vote in republican primaries, and let's be honest, there are people in both parties who have a vested interest in solving this problem for their own political advantage, and to the detriment of the country. this issue is rending the social fabric of the nation in ways that are far easier to renne than they are to mend. it is time that people of good will in this country focus on a solution that begins to mend the social fabric rather than further rending it. let me say very clearly we need comprehensive, fair, and just immigration reform first and foremost because it is the right thing to do. it is consistent with american principles. it is consistent with christian principles. if you want to see a long
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explanation of that, i would encourage you to go to the recent university law review website where my colleague and i have written a long biblical explanation of the republicans why fair, just, and comprehensive immigration reform is the right thing to do. this is not a difficult problem to solve if people of good will get together and solve it. i don't see how we secure the border until we secure the workplace. the workplace is the magnet as long as you have the economic disperty that you have between south america and the united states, people are going to come here to better themselves, to better their families' futures. they will come here. they will find a way to come here. they will defeat any means that we put up to stop them. they will go over it, under it, around it, they'll get here. the only way to secure the border is to secure the
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workplace. now, i would argue that we should have a three month period where people would have an opportunity to come forward, to register, to undergo a criminal [background check, and then pay a fine for having broken the law, not amnesty. amnesty is what jimmy carter gave to the draft dodgers who went to canada to avoid service in vietnam. they got to come home with no punishment, no fine, no anything. they just got to come home. now, i would have let them come home, but i would have require them to work for two years in veterans hospitals at minimum wage taking care of those who took their place. now, i would say that you say to these who come forward, you is a three month period to come forward, register, undergo a criminal check, pay a fine. part of the fine used to give them a ta

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